Saturday, July 16 Atlantic Queen Trip

Harbor Seal

What a gorgeous day on the ocean!  It was a warm, sunny day with calm seas and multiple species.
We started off with some looks at a minke whale, and then saw a harbor seal peeking at us!

Harbor seal - one difference between seals and sea lions is that sea lions have ear flaps, but seals do not.  The  hole behind this seal's eye is its ear!

We continued on to spend some time with Quote's 2008 calf (yep, I spoke a little too  quickly on my ID today!), a 3-year old whale just recently seen for the first time this season. Another humpback was also in the area. Quote's 2008 calf gave us great looks at its flukes!

Quote's 2008 Calf

What was not pleasant was the private boater who continued to run his engine while this humpback was dangerously close to his boat, and continued following the whale well within the recommended 100-foot viewing distance, violating (hopefully unknowingly) Whale Watching Guidelines.

Then we got some quick looks at a fin whale and moved on for a look at another humpback - Hornbill, who was first sighted in 1977!

Fin Whale

Many passengers mentioned a highlight was Hornbill's perfect dive as we left the area!

Thanks to everyone who joined us today, including the folks from the Seacoast Science Center and Portsmouth Housing Authority. And congratulations to our raffle winner - enjoy your adoption of Owl!

Footnote: To the passenger who was asking me about the word "gam"  (sorry I didn't get your name) - just Googled it and here's what I found - so it is a pod of whales.  Not a word we use every day, obviously!:

gam/gam/Noun

1. A leg, esp. in reference to the shapeliness of a woman's leg.

2. A school of whales, porpoises, or dolphins. 

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July 15 Granite State

We had quite the active today with multiple Minke whales sighted throughout the day, Fin whales scattered around the Ledge, and Humpback whales circling the area. We started our morning trip with another day of Satula the Humpback whale.With some nice looks at this animal still maneuvering the water of Jeffreys Ledge we continued further offshore and it wasn't long before we started to see multiple blows up ahead of us. We ended up in an area where we suddenly had 4 of the 2nd largest animals in the world surface just alongside our boat! Four Fin whales had joined together and were swimming just off our port side allowing for some absolutely impressive looks at these incredibly large creatures. Wow.

Above: One of the unique dorsal fins of one of the Fin whales
Below: The swirly chevron pattern of one of our Fin whales

With such fantastic looks and these whales on the move offshore we decided to check out a couple other exhalations we were seeing just a short distance away. Turns out those spouts were from another pair of whales, this time two Humpback whales. It was Chickadee (first recorded in existence on Jeffreys Ledge in 2008!) and a whale we just matched up as being the 2010 calf of a Humpback whale named Shuttle! Both whales were spending a few minutes under the water before returning to the surface filtering out ocean water. These whales were doing some deeper feeding in the area!

Chickadee with a mouthful of salt water and food!

Chickadee's tail and the 2010 calf of Shuttle's dorsal fin

A new whale for Jeffreys Ledge this season. Welcome to the area the 2010 calf of Shuttle!

We were enjoying our time with these two animals when suddenly out of nowhere Chickadee tail breached! The best part was in case any of our passengers missed it, this animal continued to showcase this behavior over and over again! Here is one of the sequences of this amazing display!

Pretty incredible when you think about how much effort, and energy, is involved with lifting half of your body out of the water over and over again, let alone an animal the size of a whale! We ended our morning trip with another single Fin whale and its very interesting skin coloration/scarring on this whale's back.Our afternoon trip also gave us some great looks at more Fin whales and Humpback whales. Our passengers were fabulous spotters as they continued to point out Minke whales and our first Fin whale of the trip! Check out this very contrasted chevron pattern from our Fin whale

The silver/gray shading pattern on the left side of this Fin whale's body

Our travels continued further offshore and we ended up spending time with the 2010 calf of Shuttle and another Humpback whale. In just a matter of hours our 1 year old was not still associated with Chickadee (as we did not even see this whale during our afternoon trip!), instead we saw another familiar Humpback, the 2008 calf of Quote. Who knows where this whale swam in from, or where it was this morning, or where Chickadee ventured off too, but it was a nice surprise to see this whale again this season. We actually saw this animal as a calf in 2008 and has returned to Jeffreys Ledge each year since 2008. Our last sighting of this whale was June 30th, just over 2 weeks ago! Again, who knows where this whale went, if it left Jeffreys Ledge or just swam to areas of the Ledge we cannot get to on a half-day trip, but thanks for the sighting again to this 3 year old!

The dorsal fin of Quote's 2008 calf

As is always the case we never know what any of these whales we get the chance to spend time with are going to do at any given moment but boy is it impressive to see what they are capable of. Try your luck and hope to see you this weekend!

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July 15 Prince of Whales

After our rough trip (literally) yesterday of trying to get out to Jeffreys Ledge and having to turn back early due to rough seas, we were happy to find just a lingering swell out on the ocean today!

We began by finding a very nice minke whale inshore. This whale gave us several nice looks- swimming back and forth, around our boat. We could easily follow it along while it was sub-surface by looking for the minke mittens- the white patches on the flippers!

We continued on and with the help of our friends on the Atlantic Queen, we had a few looks at a fin whale. I am hoping Patty got better photos than I did of this wiggly whale-

Elusive fin whale

Soon, Deckhand Ryan spotted another blow not too far away. As we investigated, we found this to be a young humpback whale! This whale was surfacing for a few breaths every few minutes and then decided to stop and stay put for a bit. We all got some great looks at it- one was very surprising as it blew right next to us without warning!

Humpback blowholes

After getting a look at the flukes, I didn't know who this little whale was. I searched our onboard catalog and came up empty. With a little more work tonight (a Friday night...) I found this whale to be Shuttle's calf from last year! Now on its own and returning to the feeding grounds without its mom, this whale will be named in the near future. Humpback whales are named for markings on the flukes, typically. Can you see any distinctive marks that look like anything specific?

Shuttle's 2010 calf- just a year and a half old!

Thanks to our enthusiastic passengers today, and congratulations to Kate, our raffle winner, who won the adoption package of humpback whale "Owl"!



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July 14 Granite State

It was another adventure for us this afternoon on the Granite State. Sometimes it is the whales that provide the entertainment, sometimes it is the ocean that does the "entertaining," and sometimes we are lucky enough to have both! So was the case today with all our hardy passengers who joined us for our trip today.

Our first stops to watch whales was attempted on a Minke whale and another animal was saw a spout from. Unfortunately both animals decided to slip under the water, and the waves/swells, and we were unable to relocate our first finds of the day. Our rough and tough fishing boats who had ventured offshore in the morning were on their way home and passed along the news of whales a bit further offshore. We pressed on and were definitely rewarded for the "rollercoaster" effect all of us endured as we maneuvered to the area.

Once we arrived we made our way over to one of the Fin whales we were seeing (3 in total!) and ended up watching a few patches of krill being pushed up to the surface by fish below. Our whale surfaced once and then sank back underneath the water. Turns out all our Fin whales we saw today we being quite the sneaky creatures. They would surface once, filtering water out of their mouths, and then disappear into the depths of the water for a while before randomly showing up in a completely different area during their next filtering episode. As long as you were looking in the right place you were able to watch such incredibly large mammals surface for a breath and then be gone a moment later. All the more impressive when you think just how easily the 2nd largest animal in the world can show itself and then be gone so quickly.

As we randomly watched the Fin whales surface about we were fortunate to spend some time with good ol' Satula, who continues to feed on Jeffreys Ledge.

Even without seeing the unique black and white pattern of this Humpback's tail, this animal's unique (or lack of) dorsal fin allows us to recognize this whale as Satula!

This whale was also surfacing with its mouth full of food and water, just as the Fin whales were displaying.

Satula rising to the surface with a mouthful of food and salt water

Satula was chomping down on food as we watched not only multiple bubble clouds form in and around where this whale was surfacing but we also saw whale poop! Brown in color, this animal had recently digested small school fish, most likely herring, and was excreting the waste created by eating so much food. A little disgusting and yet still pretty cool to see from an large adult whale!

If you look closely you might see a bit of "brown" water just near the base of Satula's tail. Yep, that's whale defecation!

More excitement awaits for us tomorrow as we head back out to whatever Mother Nature has in store for us! Come on out and start your weekend off by hopefully looking at some of the largest creatures on this planet!

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Thursday July 14 Atlantic Queen

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Well mother nature threw us a fast ball today, we knew it was going to blow out there, and it sure did. The sea's were a bit on the snappy side. Our whales did not seem to be bothered by the conditions. We saw whale poop go by the boat before finding a very shy and on the move fin whale. My intern Abby and I stayed up on the fly bridge to try our best to find whales among the white caps. Our friends on the Granite State called to say they had a few fin whales, as we were heading in there direction "Satula" came up right in front of us! He gave us a few close approaches and fluked for us! Thank you Satula for making our day today.

Wednesday's Atlantic Queen Trip

After a couple days of time in the office, in the heat and humidity, I was very glad to be out on the boat this afternoon!  Minke and fin whales were plentiful today. We got some great looks at a minke whale early on in the trip.

Then we moved on to the big ones!  We had good looks at 4 fin whales, with at least a couple more in the 

area that were in the distance.  

At one point, a fin whale came up right off the bow, and we got great looks at its beautiful, swirly gray chevron, a marking we can use to tell individual fin whales apart.  

When we first found the whales, we had all 4 of them in a line, swimming one behind the other - a pretty spectacular sight... probably at least 160 tons of whale in front of us!  Since each of these whales was probably at least 60-65' long, I couldn't get a picture of this line-up, but it was pretty impressive. After that, the whales started swimming in all directions, and behaving very erratically, so it was hard to predict where they would come up. They didn't seem to be diving far, though, and we got evidence of feeding in the form of a giant patch of whale poo (it's the little things that makes scientists excited....)

Here's a picture of a gigantic fin whale with some little Wilson's storm petrels (see the 3 of them near the bottom?):

Here's another shot.  Although we have a catalog of hundreds of identified fin whales who've visited Jeffreys Ledge, I haven't identified any of these yet, but maybe some of my colleagues can after we take a closer look at the images. We'll let you know if any of the whales were seen here before.

Thanks to all who joined us today, and congratulations to Zack, who won our raffle and an adoption of "Fjord," one of our favorite fin whales!

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July 12th, Granite State

Today was definitely a great day to be offshore! A light breeze made for cooler conditions and what a way to beat the heat. As we left the harbor, this schooner was close to the Isle of Shoals and what a sight to see as we headed to Jeffrey's Ledge in search of cetacean activity. We saw a couple of Minke whales inshore and after spending a little bit of time with them, we decided to continue on our way in search of other whales.

As we approached Jeffrey's Ledge, we came upon a couple of different pods of Atlantic white sided dolphins. They were spread out and moving quickly through the water. Our boat wake made them swim without effort and a few came clear out of the water. We let our friends on the Atlantic Queen know that we had some dolphins, and they shared that they had a Fin whale with them not that far away. As they headed to the Dolphins, we left them and went in search of the fin whale. As it surfaced, I started to snap photographs in hopes of identifying this whale. I quickly realized that this was a whale I recognized. It was Braid! We saw this whale on June 21st, and I was glad to see that this whale was back in the area. As you can see by the photo below, this fin whale was the victim of a boat strike at some point during it's young life, but survived to tell it's story. This whale is now easily recognizable to us, but it came at quite the price!

After spending quality time with Braid, we decided to more exploring offshore, but unfortunately we didn't come across any other activity and it was time to head back to Rye. After about a half hour or so, I was answering passenger questions, when the Captain started to slow the boat down. As I looked up, there was a tug and barge, and I figured that was why he was slowing down. It turned out that there was another whale that had surfaced close by and we wanted to find out what it was. We waited for several minutes and saw the whale surface off our right side. It was another fin whale. This whale seemed larger than most of the other fin whales I've seen before and it kept a very low profile. We tried our luck and stuck around for a little while longer...and I'm glad we did! It was not one whale, but 2 fin whales swimming side by side and as soon as they went on deep dives, we realized who was in the area. It was Blunt and Crow!! Blunt and Crow have not been seen yet this season and it was great to find these whales back for another feeding season. Blunt was first seen in 1982 and even though all fin whales are huge, Blunt actually looked small in comparison to Crow, who is one of the biggest fin whales we see on Jeffrey's Ledge. Blunt is photographed below.

Crow, was first seen in 1987 and is one of our favorite's! This whale was named due to the distinct shape of the dorsal fin resembling a crow's beak. This whale is photographed below.

It was such a great way to end our trip. Finding two whales that have yet to be seen this season and on our way home! Thanks to all our passengers who joined us. You found a great way to cool off!

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