What a Weekend

Whether we had the same animals or different individuals over the course our of weekend we aboard the Granite State watched whales of all kinds exhibiting all sorts of behaviors on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Our trips from the morning to the afternoon on all the days were so unique and different it was great to spend some quality time on Jeffreys Ledge with so many great passengers.

Some of the highlights from the weekend include a great look at a Blue Shark who got all of our camp kids quite excited and interested as it was being very mellow at the surface Friday morning. Newton, a Humpback whale, returned to Jeffreys after a two year haitus(as one of our naturalist's Beth mentioned in her blog). We also had Fin whales coming up to the surface upside down(!), Atlantic white-sided dolphins, and bubble feeding, tail breaches, flipper slapping, and all out full body breaches by some of our Humpback whales over the course of these past three days.

We came across Clipper and her calf again this weekend except this time these two Humpback whales had an escort moving with them. Clipper, in the photograph below, can been seen exhaling at the surface in the background while Clipper's calf has it's pectoral fin (or flipper) above the surface and proceeded to slap it on the water over and over again. Finally, Skua is in the foreground and became associated with this mother/calf pair.

Newton seen here below is so named due to the black vertical marking on the left fluke. The large black area in the center and extending outwards towards the points of the tail resemble a tree with Sir Isaac Newton sitting under the apple tree about to discover gravity!

More open mouth feeding this weekend and great looks at the baleen of a Humpback whale as it slowly begins to filter all the water out of it's mouth. One of about 50 Atlantic white-sided dolphins spotted during one of our whale watches this weekend!

We found Clipper and her calf a second time this weekend (woohoo!) The calf was pretty active the entire time we were in the area. Here are a couple photos of the calf tail breaching. This animal also leapt right into the air one time, however, I was a bit unlucky since I was searching the horizon for other animals on apparently the wrong side of the boat when the calf shot straight out of the water on the other side of the boat. One of the many reasons why it never gets old going out watching whales. At any given moment you have absolutely no idea what a whale might do. So incredible!

Simultaneous open mouths by two adult Humpback whales. A perfect 10 in synchronization!

It was great chatting with so many passengers this weekend. Hope to see you again on another trip!

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