A Pleasant Surprise

Today aboard the Granite State I must say I was not super excited to head out to look for whales. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, but the wind forecast was not calling for it to be a good day. However, much to our surprise this morning, there was barely any wind and we were going to try to squeeze the trip in between the rain showers and the gusty wind scheduled for the day. Well we did just that and it was well worth the chance. The wind began to blow, as all of our passengers felt on our way back to the harbor, but we were pleasantly surprised by the amount of activity we came across during our whale watch and well as the delay of the onset of wind.

Our sightings began rather close to the Isles of Shoals when we spotted a Minke whale a mile outside of the islands. We got a few quick glimpses of this whale and then choose to continue on our way since we were still quite inshore. Thanks to the help of our other whale watching friends aboard the Prince of Whales, we were informed they had another species for us to check out. On our way towards the area we passed by at least 6 different Harbor porpoise that were cruising by our starboard side. Once we got close to the Prince of Whales turns out we had a Humpback whale close by. We did a preliminary check for potential identification of this particular animal but so far no go. We will continue to look through more photographs to hopefully match up this juvenile animal that gave us quite the show. At least six times this whale came up with it's pleats extended filtering out massive amounts of saltwater. This animal was doing some subsurface feeding and gave us some great looks as this whale came up nose first multiple times. Of course as soon as we have a positive ID on this critter we will let you all know. UPDATE: This whale is the 2005 calf of Scylla!!!

We also found two Fin whales doing a bit of travelling once we left the Humpback whale which gave our passengers a great comparison of sizes between a "small" Humpback whale and the 2nd largest animal in the world! The trip wasn't over quite yet when we ended up close by the Prince of Whales again as we both watched a small pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins travelling just in front of another Fin whale! Here is a photo of the Fin whale as it goes on a deeper dive.Very rarely do we see two such different species of whales interact in this manner but I love when we get the chance. To have both toothed whales and baleen whales coexisting so seamlessly together amazes me every time. It was a great way to wrap up a fantastic trip.

Tomorrow we head out one last time for the 2009 season. I can't believe it is just about over but am looking forward to having the opportunity to watch whales out on Jeffreys Ledge for one more afternoon. Hope you come join us as well!

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