June 30th, Granite State

Wow is the word I am going to use for today's trips! It's not that often that you have an experience where you have to choose which whales to watch because there are so many around! It's obviously a very nice problem to have, because it's better than not having enough or any to look at! For both the morning and afternoon trips we sighted multiple Fin whales, Humbacks, Minkes and even a very active pod of dolphins!

It's quite rare to have a grand slam of whales (4 species seen in one trip) during one trip, never mind 2 trips in one day. We are still in the process of trying to identify the Fin whales we had, however I will let you know that one of the whales from our morning trip was seen this past Tuesday, the 28th. It's so nice to know that some of these whales are staying close to Jeffrey's Ledge to take advantage of the plentiful amounts of food.

Several of our Humpbacks were identified. We saw Flicker and Literal travelling together in the morning, both of whom were seen for the first time in 2008. In the afternoon however, Flicker found a different whale to hang around with and as of right now, it is an unknown for us! We also found Striation, Quote's o8 calf, Lavalier's 09 calf, another unknown, and Ivory's 09 calf. Ivory's 09 calf is photographed below.

Quote's 08 calf, Ivory's 09 calf, and one of our unknown's for the day were found travelling together and they are photographed below.

We were able to spend quality time with all the whales we saw and when we were heading over to watch trio of whales that we had in the area during our morning trip, we noticed a disturbance in the water that looked different from the Humpbacks. It was a fair distance away, but when our captain looked through his binoculars, it became clear as to what else we had...a Northern Right whale! These whales are among the rarest of the baleen whales, with about 400 left in the world! I do have to say if someone were to ask me what I think I might see, that was definitely not it! They feed mainly on a species of animal plankton called a copepod, and this whale was surface skim feeding in the area. We kept our distance from this whale, where they are highly endangered and there are strict regulations in place to protect them. Seeing one Right whale is a high percentage of their population and they could easily go extinct within our lifetime. What a special moment it was for our crew and passengers.

Throughout the day we had a couple of active groups of dolphins and everyone had a blast with these playful toothed whales. They were certainly active and we were lucky enough to see a few calves in each pod that was spotted!

I want to thank all our passengers and crew for making today so special! Here's to a happy and safe July 4th weekend!

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