September 29 Granite State

We have been so lucky this fall to be surrounded by such beautiful weather and today was of no exception. I am pretty certain we could all get accustomed to these conditions and hopping on a boat to go whale watching certainly is a fantastic way to get the full effect of these wonderful temperatures. Our travels today actually brought us back to Jeffreys Ledge; a place we have not travelled to in a few weeks! The whales had previously been spending so much time inshore of the ledge that we were getting spoiled! Today it looks like some of the whales decided to move a bit further offshore and back to more typical places we tend to find such beings.  Thanks to our other whale watching friends we ended up in an area where there were 3 Humpback whales around. One was spending a lot of time under the water so we ended up sticking with the two whales swimming along together and watching the lone whale circle around the outskirts of the area. Trowel seemed content moving around on its own today while the pair we watched consisted of Cacophony and Echo. 

Echo

Cacophony

Echo has not been seen in our area all season so what a nice surprise to come across yet another whale to add to the animals spending time around Jeffreys Ledge this year. 

Cacophony and Echo

Deeper dive for our pair

These two whales were providing us with some incredible looks at them for many times the two whales would be in complete synchrony as they moved through the water together. 

Simultaneous whale spouts!

In addition to watching these whales we also had a few Minke whales pop up around us as they too were moving on through the area. 

Super pointed dorsal fin from this Minke whale

With some wonderful looks at the two adult Humpback whales we decided to do a bit more searching before we needed to head for home. 

Can you make out the slight rainbow-blow from Echo?

Soon another spout was visible and it belonged to yet another Humpback whale. Patches was still near by! We have not seen this whale in over a week so we were happy to learn Patches may not have moved far from the area over the course of the past eight days.

Hello again Patches!

As we headed for home and passed by a few more Minke whales (6 in total for the day) the ocean still had a few more surprises awaiting for us. Our travels brought us into view of 2 more Humpback whales. It was Valley and her calf. We spent a little time with this pair and even got the chance to see both Mom and her calf raise their tails above the surface together (a behavior that is learned many times causing the calf to not quite figure out this body movement all the time). 

Valley and her calf (above and below) both raising their tails above the surface. Even whale calves like to do whatever Mom does.

With a few nice looks at this pair we were off once again back towards Rye Harbor. Turns out we had one last stop along the way. Past all the groups of harbor porpoise a large fin kept breaking the surface. We had an Ocean sunfish ahead of us! Conditions were absolutely perfect to check out this fish, the largest bony fish in the ocean. 

This Ocean sunfish swam right along side the boat giving everyone the chance to snap a few pictures of it!

So much marine life on such a beautiful day was once again cause for a wonderful day spent out on the water.

A pretty perfect combination: a beautiful calm ocean and a whale spout

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