Blue Ocean Society's Whale Sightings

It would be hard to ask for a better day. We had fairly calm seas, blue skies, warm weather, and whales all around - less than 15 miles from the harbor!

Fin whale, showing the distinctive white lower jaw

We started off with some looks at 3 different fin whales, and then spent the majority of the trip watching one of our favorite humpbacks, "Flask," bubble feeding. Looking down into the greenish-blue seas, we could see thousands of fish swimming along, and they were in a concentration high enough to draw Flask and the other whales to the area.

Flask's easily recognizable tail, with the Erlenmeyer flask on the right edge of the fluke!

Bubble feeding makes whale watching easy, as we can always tell where a whale is going to come up. We watched intently for the bright green bubble clouds to appear, and when they did, it was only a matter of seconds before Flask would explode through them in a spectacular feeding lunge!

There were many birds around - it was funny to watch them fly to Flask after each lunge, with the shearwaters pitter-pattering across the water each time they took off to go grab Flask's leftovers.

It was an added bonus at one point to have Flask feeding off the left side of the boat, while a fin whale zoomed past our right side, and later started lunge-feeding, so we could see its giant flipper and half its tail in the air!

In total, we saw between 5-7 different fin whales, plus Flask the humpback, and had a quick glimpse of a minke in the area. Plenty of active whales around!

Good weather and whales always make for a happy day - we enjoyed spending it with our passengers and hope to see the rest of you out here soon!