Fabulous Weekend on the Atlantic Queen

What a weekend on the Atlantic Queen! I'm still amazed at all the whales that were out there this weekend.

Saturday (8/8) we saw some very active whales in the distance, with two whales breaching, tail lobbing and flipper slapping. When we got to them, though, they were all tuckered out, and we ended up seeing two whales resting. Such is life on a whale watch! The two whales were Valley and Leukos.

There were several humpbacks around, all spread out over a wide area. We spent time watching Tornado, a female born in 1988, do some spectacular bubble feeding right near the boat. We also saw a Ivee and Cygnus (a male first seen in 1980, with a very distinctive dorsal fin), also feeding in the area. It was a great day with some very good looks at whales, and several passengers mentioned it was the best trip they've been on! (that's always nice for a naturalist to hear)

Saturday's identified whales:

Sunday (8/9) - wow! I was amazed at the number of whales we saw today! We started off with some looks at fin whale #0308, a whale with two notches in its dorsal fin, and a whale we've been tracking since 2003. This whale was fairly elusive, spending little time at the surface and heading towards shore, so we continued on and spent some time with about 50 playful Atlantic white sided dolphins. Although they are very common in the Gulf of Maine, we only see dolphins about 15-20% of our trips, so seeing them is always a treat! One dolphin made several high leaps as we were watching the pod mill around.

Fin Whale #0308

We then moved off to the east, where we'd seen some humpback blows in the distance, and saw our old friend Satula, a male humpback first seen in 1988 who was heading steadily east. As we followed him, other blows materialized, until humpbacks (and an occasional fin whale) were all around us. We caught up with two more whales, Cygnus (male first seen in 1980) and Tripod (a female born in 1992, who's spent most of the summer with another male, Chromosome!), and then suddenly there were whales all around!

Satula

At one point, we had 5 or 6 whales bubble feeding all nearby, and a fin whale charging through them. It was thrilling watching one of my favorite whales, Filament, doing her trademark kick-feeding behavior - lifting her fluke high above the water, and then smacking it against the water as she dove, then lunging back up through the fish. The seas started to get choppy, and it was time to head for home - but as we headed back, we passed three more humpbacks, which included Clipper and her calf, along with an escort. Seeing all the blows around was a sight I'll not soon forget.

Tripod

Cygnus's dorsal fin

Filament

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