I will start with Thursday's trip which was an adventure of it's own. Our journey brought us to an area where we were seeing lots of exhalations from large whales around us but getting close looks at the critters proved to be the difficult task. We had a total of 6 different Fin whales, all of which seemed to be coming up for only a few breaths, before diving back down under the water for long dive intervals. By the time they resurfaced the whales had traveled a good distance in random directions and go right back down by the time we approached the area again. Needless to say we were all a bit frustrated but brought us all back into the reality that we go out in search of wild animals and we have absolutely no control over what these animals do and where they go.
After many attempts of watching these fin whales and getting a couple glances at a few, we decided to head further east in search of other whales. Our luck paid off when we came across another whale, a different species, a Humpback whale named Tigris. This particular whale was scooting around a bit as well but we were lucky to watch Tigris actively feed a couple times when this animal came up with it's mouth wide open collecting lots of fish! Quite a sight. After a few mouthfuls Tigris would travel a bit before circling around again and go after more food. A nice way to wrap up our trip.
Today we headed out towards Jeffreys Ledge but came across animals before we even got there! We found 11 Fin whales and 2 Humpback whales during today's adventure. We saw some amazing close encounters with a few of the Fin whales enabling us to check out the asymmetric coloring of their right side as these whale surfaced alongside the boat. Check out this Fin whale charging through the water it just pushes the ocean out of it's way!
Our Humpback whales of the day were Solas and Flask. Solas is pictured below. 
Both whales have been seen multiple times throughout our season this year but it's been a few weeks since our last sightings of these animals. The last time I personally saw Solas was on August 21 and Flask on August 19. It gets me thinking . . . where did these whales go? Have they been elsewhere on Jeffreys Ledge in search of food and no one else has come across them? Did they continue to travel further north to other feeding grounds in the Gulf of Maine and just returned back to Jeffreys? So many questions . . .
Both whales have been seen multiple times throughout our season this year but it's been a few weeks since our last sightings of these animals. The last time I personally saw Solas was on August 21 and Flask on August 19. It gets me thinking . . . where did these whales go? Have they been elsewhere on Jeffreys Ledge in search of food and no one else has come across them? Did they continue to travel further north to other feeding grounds in the Gulf of Maine and just returned back to Jeffreys? So many questions . . . Sometimes it's so interesting to realize with all that we know about whales there is still so much we have yet to learn about these massive mammals. We may not know everything yet but being able to look back at our data collected by all our Blue Ocean Society associates each season helps to begin to piece the missing parts together.
It was a fantastic day out on the water today and I hope for all of you who have recently joined us on board have enjoyed your time as well. A special thanks to my Mom for joining us today which turned out to be a special day for her since this was the first time she has ever seen Flask AND open mouth feeding from both humpback and fin whales!!!
Were you on this trip? We'd love to hear what you thought! You can leave a comment below.
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