Thursday on the Prince of Whales- Newburyport

On our way to the Ledge Thursday afternoon, we encountered Tigris, a male humpback whale.
He was doing the things that humpbacks do: breathing, swimming and diving. As we turned to leave, he did one more thing that humpbacks do: breached! Of course it was behind the boat and only a few very lucky people witnessed it. I just saw the big splash!

Tigris, a humpback whale

A little further out we saw a few blows. These few blows turned into many finback whales! At one point, we were next to a group of 5-6, with another 2-3 nearby! Of all the whales we saw, I identified two right away- one is Pemetic, a finback first documented in 1982, and the other is #0532 (no name yet) first documented in 1986!

Three finback whales!

Dorsal fin of #0532

Pemetic (#0312)

As we were watching the finbacks, we noticed a mom/calf pair of humpbacks nearby. We moved over to see them. This was Clipper and her new calf! The pair was pretty sleepy, swimming slowly, until we decided to leave. Then the calf started acting up a bit by tail breaching and causing quite a ruckus as it has been known to do!

We then started for home, and saw two more humpbacks- Fracture and Mudskipper. At on point it appeared that these two were about to join up, but instead they went in their own separate directions. We got a quick last look at Muddy and heading for Newburyport.

Fracture

Just when we thought we were done whale watching, our mate spotted a couple of Atlantic white sided dolphins. This turned out to be a pod of about 12-15. At first they were a bit wiggly and hard to keep track of. But as we picked up speed to leave, they decided to play and were seen surfing in our wake and jumping behind the boat! What a sight!

2 dolphins surfing

2 dolphins jumping!

Thanks for visiting! We enjoyed having you!


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