July 6 Atlantic Queen Trip

Whew!  What a long, wonderful day.  Had a beach cleanup after our whale watch... our terrific volunteers collected 16 lbs of litter from Jenness Beach, although it seemed like much more than that, as the trash was comprised of little pieces of plastic, Styrofoam, and cigarette butts, necessitating lots of bending over to pick up litter.  Am just now getting to look at photos and see who was who!

Had a total of 8 humpbacks today - we got good looks at 6 of them, and there were at least 2 more being watched by other boats, and I think several more in the distance. Plenty to see today!

One of my favorite humpbacks, Sloop, was out there. Sloop was born in 1987 and has a sail-like marking on her right fluke.  She surprised us by doing a full breach - not once, but twice!! Did I get pictures of it? No!! But she immediately started flipper-slapping, and that looked like this:

Then we spent some time with our friend Satula, a whale first sighted in 1988.  Satula is Finnish for "saddle," a name that apparently references the black marking on his left fluke.

Satula

Satula incoming!

I don't mean to get too graphic here, but there's an interesting thing about Satula. I think he might have one of the most regular digestive systems of all the whales I've seen in the Gulf of Maine.  In probably 80% of the pictures I have of Satula's tail, you can see evidence of "processed whale food" (as our Research Coordinator Dianna so eloquently calls it... or what "used to be krill" as our friend Willy puts it!).  In the image below, you might see some pinkish stuff below his tail - evidence that he's fed recently!

On to more fun topics. We then spent time with Mudskipper and her precocious little calf, who spent a little time away from its mom today, checking out its surroundings. It's always great to see new members of the Gulf of Maine humpback population!

Mudskipper and calf

And lastly, we spent some time with Flicker, a whale first seen in 2008. Flicker did a surprise tail breach!

Thanks to all our terrific passengers today... and congratulations to our lucky raffle winner - enjoy your adoption of Owl!

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