August 21 on the Granite State

Well the weather was absolutely perfect this morning! However, just because we have beautiful weather does not always mean we are going to find lots of whales. We could see for miles this morning and with almost no wind offshore the surface of the ocean was smooth as can be. With such great conditions we were excited to see what we could find.

Our first sighting was a pair of Fin whales! We were thrilled. These large mammals (the second largest animals in the world as a matter of fact!) can be great to look at with such beautiful ocean conditions allowing people to truly see just how large these animals are. We were able to get a few looks as these whales surfaced together and were only under the water for 8 minutes before surfacing again. Little did we know what we were in store for next. The whales surfaced a few times and went down for a dive. So we waited. It had only been 8 minutes the last time we awaited the arrival of these mammals to come up from the depths of the ocean for some more air. And we waited. And then we waited some more. After 17 minutes and absolutely no sign of either whale we decided to press on to other areas in hopes of finding more wildlife that were not holding their breath for as long as these 2 Fin whales appeared to be achieving.

Thanks to our friends on the Prince of Whales we picked up a small group of Atlantic white-sided dolphins next. We spent some time with these whales before we decided to continue exploring the area in hopes of maybe getting lucky and coming across more whales with our great weather conditions. This time it was the thanks to our watchful passengers who spotted some disturbance at the surface. It was more dolphins! But not just that, we also saw a spout from a whale not too far away! We got some looks at this pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins, numbering at least 100 individuals in this group, before making our way over to the large whale. One whale turned into 2 as we soon realized we had 2 Sei whales in this area. Both animals were surfacing very frequently, constantly changing directions, and must have been taking full advantage of the food in the water; for it was chock full of Sei whale food, copepods!

A sample of ocean taken from our plankton net. All those tiny specs are animal plankton called copepods!

This afternoon we made our way offshore after getting some looks at a Minke whale. We ended up in the same area where we had seen the Sei whales in the morning and they were still there, but more had moved in. We had 4 Sei whales around the boat! At first only 2 of these animals were surfacing together but it did not take long after we maneuvered into the area that soon 3 Sei whales were associated with each other; surfacing and diving at similar times close to each other! The fourth whale seemed to be circling the outer area where the group was and at one point had whales on either side of the boat.

Two Sei whales on the surface of the water

What a sight, especially since we can go entire whale watching seasons without seeing this type of whale on Jeffreys Ledge! A great surprise and some great looks at these incredibly sleek and FAST animals (the fastest baleen whales in the world)!

While sometimes weather conditions can make spotting whales challenging sometimes it's not the weather at all . . . it is the wild whales that make the decisions! Sometimes these animals are cooperative, staying under the water for a few minutes at a time, and sometimes they have other plans (plans only the whales are aware of!) and we must alter our schedules to these wild creatures. So thanks to everyone who spent time searching the horizon today awaiting the moment to recognize a sign of whale activity nearby and get a chance to watch these mammals in their unique habitat.

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