Labor Day on the Prince of Whales

What a beautiful Labor Day! After yesterday's less-than-idea sea conditions, we lucked out with glassy calm seas and sunny skies today! What a difference a day makes!

We encountered our 3rd ocean sunfish of the season- look how calm that water is! Ocean sunfish are the largest species of bony fish in the world! This big critter had not qualms about being right beside our boat!

Ocean sunfish (Mola mola)

A bit further off shore we found 8 fin whales nearby, plus a few more a bit further away!
This one below has yet to be ID'ed but has some distinctive scars on its peduncle (the area just in front of the flukes), likely caused by an entanglement.
With all of the fin whales around, at one point we had a whale coming right at us!! (below)


Once we got along side a fin whale, we had excellent looks at the white lower jaw on the whale's right side:

Of great excitement for me, a self proclaimed whale geek, we found a mother/calf pair of fin whales! The interesting fact about this sighting was the ID of the mother. She is fin whale #0532, who we saw last week, but didn't see her calf anywhere near by. We had no idea she was a mom, or even a female, until today!!

Fin whale calf

Fin whale mom, #0532

As we continued on, several humpback whales showed up. Solas, an 8 year old whale, was feeding in its own unique style and even blew a bubble net right next to the boat (much to our surprise) as we were waiting for it to surface!

Solas' flukes

Solas bubble net feeding!

Flask, our adoptable whale, also made an appearance and did a bit of feeding.

Flask

Also, a new humpback visitor was in the area today- Lobo! Lobo was born in 2005 to a whale named Nine, and to my knowledge has not been seen on Jeffreys Ledge before today!

What an awesome day of whale activity and great passengers! Thanks so much for your engaging questions, and my apologies to those of you on the lower deck whom I didn't have time to talk with! If you have any questions, feel free to comment here or email me directly!


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