Friday On the Atlantic Queen

Beautiful day, beautiful sightings! We had a great day today on the Atlantic Queen. I am going to call it a grand slam! We had Solas the humpback and Tigris another humpback whale who both did some feeding for us below is Solas who is about to do some kick feeding! We also had a nice fin whale and a few minkes, minkes have not been around that much this season and I really do miss them. Our passengers were also happy to see a harbor seal pup with a herring in it's mouth, we actually saw 2 pups today. Lastly a playful group of Atlantic White Sided Dolphin. Thanks to Dan our new volunteer who has been very helpful to us, thanks Dan!

Granite State Sightings

A beautiful beginning to the holiday weekend and some great whale sightings to go along with the sunshine!

I will start with Thursday's trip which was an adventure of it's own. Our journey brought us to an area where we were seeing lots of exhalations from large whales around us but getting close looks at the critters proved to be the difficult task. We had a total of 6 different Fin whales, all of which seemed to be coming up for only a few breaths, before diving back down under the water for long dive intervals. By the time they resurfaced the whales had traveled a good distance in random directions and go right back down by the time we approached the area again. Needless to say we were all a bit frustrated but brought us all back into the reality that we go out in search of wild animals and we have absolutely no control over what these animals do and where they go.

After many attempts of watching these fin whales and getting a couple glances at a few, we decided to head further east in search of other whales. Our luck paid off when we came across another whale, a different species, a Humpback whale named Tigris. This particular whale was scooting around a bit as well but we were lucky to watch Tigris actively feed a couple times when this animal came up with it's mouth wide open collecting lots of fish! Quite a sight. After a few mouthfuls Tigris would travel a bit before circling around again and go after more food. A nice way to wrap up our trip.

Today we headed out towards Jeffreys Ledge but came across animals before we even got there! We found 11 Fin whales and 2 Humpback whales during today's adventure. We saw some amazing close encounters with a few of the Fin whales enabling us to check out the asymmetric coloring of their right side as these whale surfaced alongside the boat. Check out this Fin whale charging through the water it just pushes the ocean out of it's way!

Our Humpback whales of the day were Solas and Flask. Solas is pictured below. Both whales have been seen multiple times throughout our season this year but it's been a few weeks since our last sightings of these animals. The last time I personally saw Solas was on August 21 and Flask on August 19. It gets me thinking . . . where did these whales go? Have they been elsewhere on Jeffreys Ledge in search of food and no one else has come across them? Did they continue to travel further north to other feeding grounds in the Gulf of Maine and just returned back to Jeffreys? So many questions . . .

Sometimes it's so interesting to realize with all that we know about whales there is still so much we have yet to learn about these massive mammals. We may not know everything yet but being able to look back at our data collected by all our Blue Ocean Society associates each season helps to begin to piece the missing parts together.

It was a fantastic day out on the water today and I hope for all of you who have recently joined us on board have enjoyed your time as well. A special thanks to my Mom for joining us today which turned out to be a special day for her since this was the first time she has ever seen Flask AND open mouth feeding from both humpback and fin whales!!!

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Thursday Sept 3 on the Prince of Whales

Cory's Shearwater

Lots of whales were around today but most of them were racing around and taking long dives, making our job a bit difficult. We found 7 fin whales, and managed to get several close looks.

Fin whale dorsal fin

We also found the lone humpback whale, Tigris. Tigris has been around for a while now, which I find interesting since this is the first year we have seen him here at all! Perhaps Jeffreys Ledge is his new favorite diner!

Tigris' tail- going down!

The birding activity was excellent- all 4 species of shearwaters were seen, plus a few northern gannets and several rafts of Wilson's storm petrels, evidence that plenty of fish and plankton are still in the area!


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Wednesday on the Prince of Whales-Newburyport

Today was another of those days that can really throw you for a loop. We headed out towards the Ledge hoping to see some fantastic marine life and we were not disappointed. However, today we found ourselves finding more activity on our way back home than we did on the Ledge itself!

We came upon one fin whale, and spent a few surfacings with it before continuing along. We then stumbled upon a mother/calf pair of fin whales!! Baby fin whales have to be my favorite animal to observe in the wild. The smallest of one of the biggest, the fin whale calf must be the cutest baby animal on the planet. We got some fantastic looks at this pair, and I believe this is just the 3rd baby fin whale we have observed all season!

Fin whale mother and calf above

Fin whale mother exhaling

As we kept moving on towards the NW, we passed by another fin whale to see a humpback whale- Tigris!
Tigris has been spending a lot of time on Jeffreys Ledge this summer and we are happy to have this 32+year old male as he tends to be seen further north in the Bay of Fundy/Nova Scotia!

Tigris' flukes above

As we started our way back to the West, we found several more fin whales, all of whom seemed to be alone. But then, upon photo analysis, we realized that all 3 fin whales grouped up for our final sighting! One of these whales was a friend we first identified last year- fin whale # 0826! Always nice to have repeat visitors!!

Fin whale # 0826

Another beautiful day on Jeffreys Ledge! Thanks for all who visited with us today!



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Wednesday's Atlantic Queen Trip

A pair of fin whales - always a great sight to see not only one, but two of these representatives of the second-largest species on Earth!

A fin whale surfaces while a gull hurries out of the way!

I'm very behind in getting this post and pics up, so I apologize! September is always one of my favorite months for whale watching, and this one has not disappointed so far! We had lots of fin whales around today, and also found one humpback, Tigris, a male who's one of our favorites of this season because we've seen him regularly for several weeks now. Best of all, these whales were all within 15 miles of shore, affording us plenty of time with them!

Right side of a fin whale, showing its white lower jaw and v-shaped chevron marking

Thanks to everyone who came on board today, I enjoyed talking with you all!

Tigris

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Tuesday on the Prince of Whales- Newburyport

Lots of activity on Jeffreys Ledge Tuesday! The variety was astounding.

We started out sightings with a large, spread out pod of Atlantic white sided dolphins! These dolphins were very "low profile", barely making a splash when they surfaced. There must have been at least 200 dolphins in the group which spread out for over a mile! Then, much to our surprise, right in the middle of the dolphin pod, we noticed a different kind of dorsal fin. It was an ocean sunfish, also called the Mola mola (scientific name)! This was our first Mola sighting all year!! Molas are the largest species of bony fish (some cartilage fish/sharks are larger) and can weigh over 1000 pounds and grow up to 10 feet in diameter! Our fish was a bit smaller, but still fun to watch.

Ocean sunfish, also called Mola mola

As we watched the dolphins and sunfish, several fin whales and a humpback whale were very close by. We spent some time with Tigris, a male humpback whale, and then tried to catch up with some of the fin whales. All the whales were seemingly behaving the same: up for just a couple breaths, and then right back down on a deep dive, making them a bit difficult to get near. We did manage to get several great looks:

Humpback named Tigris

Fin whale diving

On the way home, we encounted the dolphins again. This time they were a bit more active and seemed to enjoy playing in our wake as we left!

Atlantic white sided dolpin jumping through the wake

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Aaahhh...September....

Not sure if it’s the weather or the whales, but every year, we all look forward to September. We welcomed September with gorgeous weather and lots of whales aboard the Granite State. We had a total of 1 Harbor seal, 2 Minke whales, 1 Humpback, lots of bluefin tuna, and an astonishing 20+ Fin whales. What a day! We left the dock with clear blue skies and calm seas. We first came upon an area inshore of Jeffrey’s Ledge with about 8 Fin whales. We had 3 different pairs and a couple of single whales. Here are some photos of the one of them.

After spending quite a bit of time with several different Fin whales, we decided to explore around the Ledge. To our surprise, we came upon an area with 5 more Fin whales. As we were slowing making our way around those whales, we saw 5-6 other whales about 2 miles away along with a bunch of small splashes. We decided to check that area out to see what awaited our arrival. Well, exploring paid off. We found 5 other Fin whales, a Humpback named Tigris, and large schools of Bluefin tuna all in one area. All the whales were circling around and our fish machine was showing lots of bait under the water. We watched in amazement as schools of tuna were stunning other small fish under the water. As I was taking photos of all the tuna, I was shocked to see one of our Fin whales fill my camera lens. It lunged through the whole group taking in all the small fish that the tuna were working after. What a sight! Below, you can see the fish, tuna, and the Fin whale on its side with its mouth wide open.

This particular whale peeked my interest as it had a very distinct shape to the dorsal fin and unique markings on its left side. We use these features to tell these whales apart and I look forward to finding out who this whale is. If that wasn’t enough, Tigris decided to create a bubble cloud right under the boat. We watched as this whale fed along side us. Overall, it was a spectacular day out on Jeffrey’s. I look forward to our fall season and hope you will join us soon…

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