Yesterday on the Prince of Whales, we had a beautiful day with perfect conditions to find whales. We found an adult fin whale being very cooperative- diving for just 4-5 minutes at a time! We have spent the day scouring our fin whale catalog and still can't find a match. So although I am unable to tell you who this nice whale was, I am excited to think it may be a new addition to our catalog! Each year, about half of the fin whales we find on Jeffreys Ledge are not currently in our catalog, making the local population estimates difficult to assess, but inspiring to know there may be more fin whales in the area than previously thought!

We also found a minke whale on our way back to Newburyport. This little guy was staying near the boat and surface pretty frequently! If you looked closely, you could see its minke "mittens"!

Join us next weekend for more whale sightings!

Memorial Day Weekend a Success!

I haven't had a chance to upload my photos from Sunday's (5/24) trip yet, but wanted to send a quick report on our trip on the Atlantic Queen. Despite an early fog and gray sky, we ended up with a beautiful afternoon on the water. Out on Old Scantum, a ledge inshore of Jeffreys Ledge, we spent time with a really great minke whale, who was surfacing with its snout charging out of the water, and circling around near the boat. Several times we caught glimpses of its white "minke mittens." This minke had a couple deep scars in front of its dorsal, and I'm wondering if it was our old friend "Scar Minke," who appears in our area just about every year. Dianna, our research coordinator, should be able to confirm that this week.

Then we searched around quite a while, and as we turned for home ended up finding another whale out on the Ledge. At first we thought it was a fin whale, then it looked too small to be one so we thought it might be a minke. It finally surfaced nearly horizontally, looking very much like a fin whale, so our final call was that it was a juvenile fin whale. Unfortunately, we didn't get a look at the right side of its head (to confirm if it had the white lower jaw characteristic of fin whales), because it dove and was underwater for about 8 minutes and by then it was time to head home.

Overall, a nice day on the water!

First Trip of the Season!

The fin whales are here in force! Today was the first Blue Ocean Society whale watch of the season onboard the Prince of Whales in Newburyport. The crew was excited with anticipation of what and who the first trip would bring. As the miles passed, a few of us were getting anxious, and nervous. But then, on the horizon, Captain Billy spotted the first blow. We motered closer and found many fin whales just on the edge of Jeffreys Ledge. Three whales turned into four whales. No, wait...there's a fifth whale...and is that a sixth?? The blows seemed endless.

But then, to make our trip even better, we saw a familiar face, or dorsal fin I should say, near the boat. Fjord!! Fjord was our first fin whale last season as well! His record shows he prefers to visit the Ledge early in our season- almost always seen in May and early June each year! Fjord is also one of our Adoptable whales!

While watching Fjord and his buddies for a while, another familiar friend appeard. A small humpback whale named Sonogram swam past out boat, seemingly on a mission. Sonogram was born in 2004, making it 5 years old this year. This juvenile humpback certainly had places to be and we were lucky to capture these quick images of its back and fluke as it cruised out of the area.
We can't wait until next weekend when we will go back out to the Ledge and see who else is around! Be sure to join us!

Countdown to the 2009 Season!

We're preparing our GPS's, adding newly-named whales to our catalogs, and dusting off our raingear. The 2009 whale watch season is about to begin! We look forward to posting updates on our whale sightings again this year and seeing you on the boat sometime this summer. If you want even more updates on whale sightings, you can follow us on Twitter!

Bittersweet Ending

Sunday, October 12th, was our last whale watch of the 2008 season. I found it very difficult to leave Jeffrey's Ledge with so many whales around. We started our trip a bit inshore of Jeffrey's with many diffferent adult Fin whales. Throughout our trip we also encountered many different pods of Harbor porpoise and were even lucky enough to see a Basking Shark. Once we reached the Ledge, we were pleased to find 3 adult Humpback whales, Rouge, Kohoutek, and Spoon! Rouge was traveling alone while Spoon and Kohoutek stayed together, feeding the entire time. It was great to see old "friends" on the Ledge for one last time. For me, the highlight of the trip came towards the end. We were lucky enough to finish our trip with 3 Northern Right Whales. Two of them were travelling together and spending the majority of their time at the water's surface. We watched from a distance as they raised their heads high above the surface and one of them even spy-hopped to get a good look around. With so few left in the world, I couldn't think of a better way to end our season. It was truely remarkable. Many thanks to everyone at Blue Ocean, Granite State Whale Watch, and all our passengers for another great season. I am already counting the days until next May!

Grand Finale

Although I am sad to see the whale watch season come to an end, I am very pleased with our last trip's sightings. We began this beautiful day passing by what seemed to be endless pods of harbor porpoises. These little friends were everywhere! On southern Jeffreys, we had a few looks at Valley, a female humpback whale who was moving pretty slowly and surfaced pretty close to our motionless boat.

After that, we moved north a bit to find, to our happy surprise, three right whales! Two were together, rolling at the surface, and lifting their enormous heads and flukes out of the water. The third was just a little further away. We sat quietly and watched these endangered animals frolic for a bit, not seeming to have a care in the world. It is truly amazing to be in the presence of right whales as their population is so small, and to think that they may not be here in 50 years. We were all very thankful for the experience. As we were enjoying the sights, a sei whale cruised by and a dozen small land birds of various species were fluttering all around our boat much to the delight of the passengers.

As we headed for home, glowing from such a wonderful last trip, we encountered more whales! This was a pair of humpbacks and as soon as the larger one lifted her tail, we immediately knew who she was. Pinball and her new calf!!! Pinball is one of our 4 humpbacks available for adoption and she has only been seen once this summer by our staff. Pinball and her calf were moving south at a steady rate, and the calf, nearing its weaning time and showing some independence, was beginning to stray a bit from Pinball.


I can't imagine a better way to end the season. For all of you who came out with us this summer, thank you! And we hope to see you back with us (and the whales) next year!

Ending on a High Note

We finished up our season on the Atlantic Queen yesterday, and I'm sorry to see the season ending. It seems like summer just started! We ended on a high note, though. We started out with a pair of fin whales, and have identified one as "Trax," a whale first seen by BOS just last year but whose sightings records at Allied Whale in Bar Harbor date back to 1979! This whale has a very distinctive set of prop scars on its right side.

Trax

Then we were lucky enough to see a right whale, our third of the season! As one of the most endangered large whales with only an estimated 400 remaining worldwide, this was a great sighting! We were fortunate to see it gracefully lift its enormous fluke before we left. We also saw lots of harbor porpoise throughout the trip and even a few tuna.

If we identify the other fin whale and the right whale, I'll post more information about them here this week. We'll look forward to seeing you in 2009!

A plastic bag 20 miles offshore.
We'll be tabulating our litter data soon to see if plastic bags were again one of the top items seen offshore.