June 27 Granite State

Another beautiful morning today with clear skies and glass-like conditions on the surface of the ocean. Our morning sightings started out with a couple of Minke whales inshore before heading out towards Jeffreys Ledge. We then came upon a Humpback whale named Flicker. Before long we even ended up getting a few looks at a Fin whale that had moved into the area as we spent some time watching Flicker.

Flicker

With such great visibility we decided to go search a few other areas for potential whale activity nearby. Our searching ending up taking us to another Humpback whale, an adult female named Nile. This whale has been seen over the past few days and we continue to enjoy the fact that she has been sticking around the productive grounds of Jeffreys Ledge. Our show stopping sighting however, turned out to be the large pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins we spotted just before heading for home this morning. This group encompassed at least 100 individuals, including some recently born calves, and with such beautiful ocean conditions everyone on board could watch the ease and gracefulness of these whales as they swam all around the boat! We only see dolphins about 20% of the time we go out whale watching and since we start mid-May and continue whale watching in to October, that's a lot of trips and thus it is always quite the special treat when we get the opportunity to encounter these animals! Our trip wasn't over yet as we ended up getting some fantastic looks at a Fin whale cruising through the area as we continued back towards Rye Harbor!

The white lower jaw of a Fin whale (above) and its dorsal fin (below)

Our afternoon trip held its own surprises as our first sighting of the trip was a very large Basking Shark. This fish didn't stay at the surface for long but many of our passengers got a really close look at the second largest shark in the world! Our next sighting was the second largest animal in the world but it wasn't just one, or two, or three... we had 4 large Fin whales moving through the water together!

Two out of the four Fin whales going on a deeper dive!

Fin whales require so much food every single day that typically when we get the chance to see these animals, they are normally swimming alone as they are constantly searching for their daily requirements of 1 million calories of food! The fact that we had four of these animals all associated with each other was quite the fantastic spectacle!

The ever subtle but distinctive markings of a few of our Fin whales. While the dorsal fins all look very similar in shape and size each photo also showcases a lighter colored scar, or marking, on these whale's backs!

As we were about to leave this group and check out another whale we were seeing out in the distance, a fifth Fin whale was making its way into the area. That made 5 very large Fin whales in one small area; wow!

The other animal out in the distance was a different species, a Humpback whale, and one of the same individuals we had sighted in the morning, it was Flicker again. Since Flicker wasn't going anywhere in particular we got some very nice looks at this animal before deciding to do a bit more searching with another afternoon of great ocean conditions. Our travels took us to two more whales, another Fin whale and another Humpback whale.

Our sixth different Fin whale for the afternoon!

Our Humpback whale was Striation and has also been spending extended periods of time around Jeffreys Ledge as this animal has been spotted by our friends on the Atlantic Queen and the Prince of Whales over the past couple of weeks.

Thanks to all our passengers who joined us today whether you were from just a few miles inland or from all corners of the country as it was such a wonderful day to spend offshore!



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