Saturday, August 20 on the Atlantic Queen

Great day today!  We had beautiful sunny weather and relatively calm seas, and sightings of 101 whales!  That was 1 baleen whale, a humpback, and about 100 very active toothed whales - Atlantic white-sided dolphins!

We saw the humpback first - it was a 10-year old whale named Doric who was last seen last year.  Doric was spending lots of time underwater, taking 10-13 minute dives. But we got a few great looks at its tail:

Then, thanks to our friends on the Starfish, we got to watch a terrific pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins!  I haven't seen many dolphins this season, and during a "normal" season we see these toothed whales only on about 15% of our trips, so I was excited by this sighting. And to make it even better, one of the dolphins leaped in the air at least 20 or 30 times!  I don't know what it was doing - if it was some sort of play behavior, feeding behavior, or some other demonstration, but it was spectacular to watch.

Several times, we were surrounded by dolphins. Often, 5 or 6 dolphins will swim towards the boat at one time, but today we could look over the side of the boat and see 20 or 30!

Thanks to all who joined us today, and especially to Shelly and Steven, who I think brought us some good dolphin luck from Beacon!

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