June 29th, Granite State

We started our day with hazy sunshine and left the dock wondering what today would bring. We saw our first whale of the day shortly after passing the Isles of Shoals, but it was travelling through the water so quickly that we had a difficult time finding out what type of whale it was. A dolphin perhaps, or a small Minke whale? Our curiousity got the best of us, so we tried to follow this whale. It turned out to be a small minke whale, most likely a juvenile, but it zooming through the water like nothing I have ever seen before. We spent a little time with this whale and when we tried to leave, it wouldn't let us! This minke whale seemed very curious about us and it was a great way to start our trip.


As we continued towards Jeffrey's Ledge, we spotted a couple of Fin whales travelling in different directions and had to chose which one to try and spend some time with. The other factor was the hazy horizon, which made it a little difficult to spot the tall exhalation from the whales. Luckily, the seas were fairly calm, so we could see their dark backs above the surface. One of the fin whales started swimming in our direction so we decided that this would be the whale we would try and watch, and it swam right by the boat giving all our passengers a great view as to how large it was!


We spotted lots of splashing not too far away from where our fin whale was and it turned out to be a large pod of dolphins. These were Atlantic white sided dolphins and there were at least 150 of them, spanning over 1/2 mile in all directions. They loved swimmming in our wake and were great fun for the little kids we had on board.



Once we left the dolphins we decided to check out an area where fisherman had reported whale activity earlier in the morning, not knowing if the whales would still be there...after all, they are constantly on the move looking for food. We searched for a little while and our searching paid off. We found yet another species of whale, a single Humpback whale. It turned out to be Siphon's 09 calf. What a great way to end our morning trip. We aslo had a quick glimpse at a blue shark and spotted fin whales on our way back to Rye harbor. We were excited to get back out there for our afternoon trip...

Our afternoon started with a few Minke whales as we headed back to Jeffrey's Ledge. As we continued on we came upon a single Fin whale that we wanted to spend some time with. We saw the whale one time before it slipped underneath the water and unfortunatley we never saw it again. We waited about 12 minutes in the area and the fin whale must have been travelling to a different area for more food. These large whales have the capability of holding their breath for over an hour, but most of the time they are using up so much energy during their feeding season, that they need to surface more often to breathe. This Fin whale had travelling on its mind and didn't stick around for us to get another look. They are wild animals afterall, and one can never predict their behavior.

We decided to move on to other potential reoprts of whale activity and we were lucky enough to find 2 Humpback whales. These Humpback whales were in different locations, but we spent quality time with both of them. One of our humpbacks, was our friend from the morning, Siphon's 09 calf. This whale was feeding deep underneath the water and when it would surface, you could see all the salt water filtering out of its mouth!




We aslo spent time with one of our adopt-a-whales, Satula. Satula was first sighted in 1988 and was creating bubble clouds underneath the water to help corral an afternoon meal. It was great to spend time with him again and seeing one of our adopt-a-whale's is always a special treat! Thank you to all our passengers who came along for the ride.



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