Atlantic Queen August 2

As I headed to Rye Harbor today the fog was as thick as pea soup!  I will be honest I was nervous we would not see anything but fog.  As we headed to the Isles of Shoals out of no where the fog lifted, the sun warmed us up and we were on our way.  There were no other boats in site when we saw one blow,which turned into 2!  I was very excited to see there were 2 humpback whales!

"Ballpark" in the foreground with a friend

"Ballpark" with a big barnacle on its dorsal fin

Our beautiful fin whale

We also had 2 fin whales in the area,we spent time with just one,but it was amazing sightings coming up right in front of us!  Our passengers were so spoiled today!  Great passengers and great whales who were just staying with us only going down for short periods of time. Wow what a day!  Many thanks to all who supported our mission today!









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Aug 2 Prince of Whales

Today we took the southern route out to Jeffreys Ledge. Although it took us a while to find marine mammals, the work paid off. We found an active pod of Atlantic white sided dolphins! This group was composed of about 20-30 individuals who were happy to play in our wake!

As we continued on, we searched and searched. Then we saw a spout a couple miles ahead. This turned out to be a humpback whale named Bat! Bat is a 33+year old female who has had 7 documented calves! She was staying under for about 9-10 minutes but she wasn't moving too quickly so we got some nice looks before it was time to head in.

On our return trip, we passed by another pod of dolphins- this pod was smaller than the first with about 10 individuals in it. As I mentioned, we usually only see dolphins on about 25% of our trips so it was fantastic to see 2 pods on one trip!!

Thanks to our interested and enthusiastic passengers today!


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August 1 Starfish

Bit of a windy day out at Jeffreys Ledge today! We had a nice quite boat today, which was great for the passengers because everyone was able to get a good look at the whales. Once we made it out 22 miles off the coast we found ourselves in an area surrounded by fin whales. We estimated that there were 5 or more fin whales within the immediate area around our boat. Some of the whales were taking long dives. Some dives were over 8 minutes long. Luckily two of the fin whales; which had associated behaviors were more cooperative. We got some great looks at this pair.

Hope everyone enjoyed the trip today! We hope to see you soon.

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Atlantic Queen August 1

What a weird day. There were plenty of whales around, but it was difficult to get good looks at them - they just weren't spending much time at the surface!  We did see a total of 6 fin whales, starting with a fin whale that popped up right next to the boat, only to take a long time to resurface.

Here are two of the fin whales:

Then, we saw another blow in the distance. This turned out to be a humpback whale, who we haven't identified yet.  We got a quick look at its dorsal fin, but it didn't fluke when it dove.

At that point, we were pretty far from Rye, so decided to head home.  Sometimes we have to be grateful that we get to see whales at all, even though we might not get terrific looks at them! After cruising awhile, the captain said, "Something just breached over there," and it turned out to be a humpback!  This whale was Sundown, who was first seen in 2007!

Sundown tail-breached (threw the lower half of its body) out of the water several times, and we got great looks at its tail. This great sighting towards the end of the trip definitely made up for some challenges earlier on!

Sundown's distinctive fluke

Thanks to everyone who joined us today!

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August 1 Granite State

This morning was a bit of an unexpected surprise.  Whales have been around and we have been enjoying spending time with anything we encounter.  Today however, was a little bit different.  After leaving Rye Harbor and traveling to Jeffreys Ledge we ended up coming into an area where there were a few spouts around.  As we got closer, the spouts became more plentiful.  Whales were literally EVERYWHERE!  Within a matter of minutes we were seeing 12+ animals in every which direction.  It was a bit chaotic as we attempted to watch whatever was around, figuring out just which whales were moving, which were staying put, and what species was nearby.  Before all the whale action we actually stopped on a Blue shark swimming amongst the whale frenzy and then eased our way toward 3 Fin whales near by.  These whales were on the move, which we ended up encountering later on in our trip, and continued to ease our way to another trio of whales.  This time it was 3 Humpback whales.  All three whales were circling around spending only minutes under the water.  A few minutes later we knew who we were watching.  It was Ebony, Cajun, and Bat. 

Ebony and Cajun surface alongside the boat

These three animals continued to circle around the boat and got some incredible looks before making our way to some of the other whales we were seeing.

Bat

Cajun

Further out more Fin whales were surfacing in so many directions.  Taking our time and attempting to get looks at any whale that surfaced in our general vicinity, we continued to watch pairs, and singles, move around the area. 

Two extremely large Fin whale barely creating any disturbance on the ocean's surface

More spouts further away intrigued our curiosity as we continued stopping, looking, and seeing more whales.  At one point we found another trio of Fin whales moving through the water together and a single surfacing just off our port side.  Whoa, what a fantastic look at one of these creatures!

Fin whale at the surface allowing us to see it's flipper!

We began running short on time and turned towards home only to cross paths with 4 Humpback whales.  These whales were on the move as three of the four were actually the ones we had spent time with earlier in the morning.  However, this time another "friend" had joined them.  We were able to identify this fourth whale as Sundown.  All in all we sighted 6 Humpback whales and 16 Fin whales throughout our morning travels.  Wow.

Sundown joins in on the fun

This afternoon we were off to see if some, or any, of the whales were still near by.  Turns out we got the chance to see 5 different Fin whales.  Like this morning, the Fin whales in the area were being a bit sporadic in their surfacings.  These whales were spending a bit of time under the water and changing direction, but with some patience we got the chance to get some great looks at this species.  Our first Fin whale this afternoon was one we had seen from this morning.  Great that this particular whale was still going strong on Jeffreys Ledge. 

One of the same whales seen during our morning and afternoon trip!

Later we moved onto other area where we had had luck in the morning and found more Fin whales.  A few were being elusive, coming up for a couple breaths and disappearing for a while, so we headed towards a spout we kept seeing quite frequently.  Turns out that single spout, and whale once we got into the area, turned into two whales!  This pair of Fin whales while moving, were providing some great looks as they continued swimming through the water at a relatively slow pace.  One of the whales in this pair is a whale that continues to show itself over the past few days.  #0813 is still around.

Fin whale #0813

Our Fin whale pair

Who knows what tomorrow will bring as even we have no idea what to expect but it certainly provides us quite the anticipation of the unknown!

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Prince of Whales July 31 & August 1

If you have been a regular visitor to out sightings page you know we have been posting how different each day can be when you want to watch and study whales in a big area.  Why are they here one day and then gone the next?  Only they know.  Tuesday we saw 4 fin whales, including "Ladder" on of our adopt a whales from the Blue Ocean Society, 5-6 dolphins, 3 harbor porpoise,  a young humpback whale, and a blue shark!

Our young humpback waiting for a name

Wednesday was a whole different story.  It was a bit bumpy heading out to the ledge with winds gusting sending a bit of spray onto some of our passengers, including myself!  Today was all about fin whales.  Our first whale gave us some nice looks of its bright chevron.

Fin whale chevron

Even more chevron!

Though each day brings many surprises, some better than others, we are so fortunate to live in one of the best whale watching area's in the world!  Thank you to all of our passengers today and to Drew from Baltimore who won our raffle today, Trigger, the fin whale!  Happy early birthday to Jessie, on of our fun, energetic deck hands!!



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Tuesday, July 31, Granite State

We started the day offshore close to Jeffrey's Ledge where several whales have been feeding over the last couple of days. We were lucky enough to start with not one, but two Fin whales! One of the fin whales looked much smaller than the other and we soon realized that we had a mother, calf pair.

 

We spent quality time with this pair and it is always so nice to see new life on the ledge. As we were watching the pair, a third fin whale surfaced right next to us! It turned out to be Dingle.  Dingle surfaced 2 times then disappeaered underneath the water and continued traveling. Even though it was for a short period of time, it was so nice to see Dingle again.


Before long, we were surrounded by about 7 different fin whales and we were able to get great looks at 5 of them throughout the morning.

We ended our morning trip with a different species on the ledge. We found a juvenile Humpback whale. This whale was taking long dives, but we were able to get great looks at this whale and it's another new humpback whale to the ledge this season. We are still in the process of trying to identify this whale and will keep you posted once we get a positive ID.

We travelled to the same area in the afternoon in hopes that we would have luck in finding a few whales that may have stuck around. Whales are constantly moving to different areas to feed, but we were hopeful that we would be able to relocate a few whales perhaps that we're seen in the morning. Our first stop was slightly inshore of the ledge with a single adult fin whale. this whale has a small notch in the tip of the dorsal fin and prominent peduncle scars, and we were able to identify it as #9724! This whale was first sighted by the Blue Ocean Society in 1997 and we were so happy to see this whale once again.

We then travelled to an area where we found the same mother, calf fin whale pair from the morning trip! This afternoon however, the calf was quite active rolling around perhaps learning feeding behaviors from mom!

The pair were accompanied by a third individual and it was such a spectacular sight to see 3 of the second largest animal in the world close by.
As we were watching the trio of fin whales, we got a report from our friends on the Prince of Whales that they had found a humpback whale. We waited for the trio of fin whales to resurface to get a last looks at them before trying to relocate the humpback whale that was a couple miles away from our location. As we started slowly moving away the captain noticed something else along the surface. What he first thought was an ocean sunfish, turned out to be a Leatherback turtle!! Yep, a turtle! It is a rare sighting, but what was more shocking was that it surface several times right next to the boat! To actually get a good look at one from a boat is very difficult, and this was by far one of the highlights of the day. In my thirteen years of whale research, I have never seen a leatherback turtle in the wild!! A fantastic sighting for everyone aboard!!

We ended our day with the same juvenile Humpback whale seen earlier in the day. This whale created a few bubble clouds to corral food and was busy feeding.

What a fabulous day and we are looking forward to what tomorrow will bring!