Prince of Whales finds the common and the uncommon!

Hi, and welcome to the first whale watch blog of the 2010 season! We departed Newburyport this morning with an enthusiastic group of students from Alvirne High School. The first trip of the season is always full of anticipation and wonder. We had reports from the fishing fleet of some whale activity on Jeffreys Ledge, but due to our time constraints, knew we couldn't make it there and back in just 3 hours.

We steamed toward another area that is known for is productivity and found a very nice minke whale. Minkes are one of the most common whales on the Ledge, but sometimes these animals are shy or aloof. This one was very social. We were close enough to see the minke "mittens"! After spending some time with this whale, we continued on and came across something unusual.

A lone bottlenose dolphin appeared! This was only the second time that I have seen this offshore form of bottlenose in this area in all of my 15 years of watching whales! Although bottlenose dolphins (think of Flipper) are common along the coast in the southeast, they are rare to find in the northeast. What made this even more unusual was that the dolphin repeatedly surfaced with its mouth open! This just goes to show that we never know what we'll find out there!
Please join us this weekend for more whale watching fun!

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