Memorial Day Weekend a Success!

I haven't had a chance to upload my photos from Sunday's (5/24) trip yet, but wanted to send a quick report on our trip on the Atlantic Queen. Despite an early fog and gray sky, we ended up with a beautiful afternoon on the water. Out on Old Scantum, a ledge inshore of Jeffreys Ledge, we spent time with a really great minke whale, who was surfacing with its snout charging out of the water, and circling around near the boat. Several times we caught glimpses of its white "minke mittens." This minke had a couple deep scars in front of its dorsal, and I'm wondering if it was our old friend "Scar Minke," who appears in our area just about every year. Dianna, our research coordinator, should be able to confirm that this week.

Then we searched around quite a while, and as we turned for home ended up finding another whale out on the Ledge. At first we thought it was a fin whale, then it looked too small to be one so we thought it might be a minke. It finally surfaced nearly horizontally, looking very much like a fin whale, so our final call was that it was a juvenile fin whale. Unfortunately, we didn't get a look at the right side of its head (to confirm if it had the white lower jaw characteristic of fin whales), because it dove and was underwater for about 8 minutes and by then it was time to head home.

Overall, a nice day on the water!