Ending on a High Note

We finished up our season on the Atlantic Queen yesterday, and I'm sorry to see the season ending. It seems like summer just started! We ended on a high note, though. We started out with a pair of fin whales, and have identified one as "Trax," a whale first seen by BOS just last year but whose sightings records at Allied Whale in Bar Harbor date back to 1979! This whale has a very distinctive set of prop scars on its right side.

Trax

Then we were lucky enough to see a right whale, our third of the season! As one of the most endangered large whales with only an estimated 400 remaining worldwide, this was a great sighting! We were fortunate to see it gracefully lift its enormous fluke before we left. We also saw lots of harbor porpoise throughout the trip and even a few tuna.

If we identify the other fin whale and the right whale, I'll post more information about them here this week. We'll look forward to seeing you in 2009!

A plastic bag 20 miles offshore.
We'll be tabulating our litter data soon to see if plastic bags were again one of the top items seen offshore.