Monday's Trip on the Prince of Whales

You can tell how successful a trip is by the tan-o-meter. Today, after I got home, I looked in the mirror and realized the sunglasses tan line was much more distinctive than it was this morning! I certainly spent more time on top of the wheel house looking at and talking about whales than on a typical trip! We had a lot to see and discuss today. Fjord, the finback whale, six humpback whales and a quick look at a minke whale kept us very busy :)

Mudskipper in particular was extremely active. We spotted this humpback whale a few miles off our bow while we were watching Fjord. He wasn't hard to spot- he breached over and over again, and then began flipper slapping. After these dramatic displays, he began to bubble feed. All of these different behaviors kept our intern, Philip, very busy with the data collection!

We continued on and passed by two more humpback whales before coming upon three more humpbacks- Flask (our good ol' buddy!), Tripod and Chromosome. These three were all deep feeding on schools of fish about 100 feet below us, and several times surfaced very close to the boat- once very unexpectedly (apologies to anyone who overheard my surprised exclaimation)!

All in all, we had a beautiful day on the ocean and thanks to all the interested passengers who came as far as Texas and Germany to see whales! Also, thanks to the local folks from Groveland and Rhode Island for your excellent questions and sincere interest!

For more information about whales, our research and how you can help or even adopt a whale, please visit our website at http://www.blueoceansociety.org/ Thanks!