Old friends return

Yesterday (7/3o) I was on the Atlantic Queen and we were happy to see some old friends on the water! We started off with some great looks at a mother/calf pair we've seen this season already, #9904 (who had her last calf 3 years ago).

#9904 and calf

The calf was fun to watch - a couple times it poked its head up first as it came to the surface, a behavior more like a minke whale than a fin whale! After we watched this pair for awhile, a single whale came along - an adult named "Crow" (who could likely be a male since we've seen him several different times and never with a calf), who we first started tracking in 1998 but was first photographed in 1987! This whale has been seen in our area every year since 2004, and has also been sighted off Mount Desert Rock in Maine and off of New York! Crow has a very distinctive dorsal fin, so we could identify him almost immediately:

Crow

There have been other familiar fin whales in the area, including "Dingle," who we named for the little point coming out of the back if its dorsal fin. Dingle was seen on Sunday:

Fin whales are an endangered species, and just beautiful to watch. They are probably the most graceful whale we see! Hope you can join us soon and see them for yourself.

What a Surprise!

The weather was beautiful on Jeffrey's Ledge today. The Granite State traveled about 23 miles from Rye this morning near a deep water area right above the ledge and found quite a surprise. We were watching a young Humpback whale, #0811, when the captain noticed a small whale off our bow. It turned out to be not one, but several Pilot whales! We actually haven't seen these whales out on Jeffrey's Ledge since 2005! What a treat it was to spend time with these playful whales. The weather looks great for this week and I hope you will join us soon.

Fin whales are back!

We went out to the western edge of Jeffreys on Saturday following a fisherman's report of a couple fin whales and a humpback. We didn't find the humpback, but saw a big fin whale, who was really nice to us in that it only took 2 1/2 minute dives and never went really far, so we got some great looks! The whale was probably about 65 feet long or so, and we really appreciated its size when a tiny (in comparison) minke whale surfaced right near it!

My first post! *hurray!*

So.......... for my first blog...i would like to post a couple of great quotes by those who will remain anonymous (quite possible in part because i may never see some of them again).

"Look! Look! A duck! (in reference to a Shearwater)"
"Whaling is a dirty job"
"Here's some pictures on my phone of my son at his birthday party.....and here he is at easter..."

Great moments particularly on the POW. On that note...

Today was a bit strange with the unexpected bloom of fog. I was making note of some trash that i saw...and then i look up and there's a bunch of fog that suddenly invaded the nice sunny boat ride we were having. You win some you lose some. I still enjoyed the Minke Whales though, even if it wasn't SCAR-MINKE or SOCK-EYE-MINKE (it was really cool seeing SOCK-EYE the other day...Dianna was so happy! hahahah. Okay well, I hope i only bored some people just ''a little bit" 8). Thanks for the invite Jen!
BTW- The pictures on the blog are awesome!!! Here's one i took awhile back

Mike

Wacky Wednesday

We've had such awesome whales and weather this summer, I thought it was important to also post a message showing a "slower" day just to even things out. This one is about the trip on Wednesday the 23rd. We've had better days on the ocean. It was a bit sloppy out, and whales were unusually hard to find. Needless to say, we were delighted when we finally came upon a minke whale, who was pretty close to Cape Ann.

After a couple of decent looks, we unfortunately lost it and did some more searching. We saw some splashes in the distance, likely from a breaching minke, but eventually decided we'd had enough of rough seas and it was time to head for home before the pending thunderstorms hit!

Big storm systems often cause the whales to move into different places. But the weather looks good for this weekend, so hopefully we'll get out and have some good sightings!

Visit Jeffrey's Ledge

Last week was a great week to be out on the ocean. My high-lights include seeing a pair of male Humpback whales named Littlespot and Wy on Friday, the 18th. Even though they are frequent visitors to the Ledge, it was our first documentation of them this season. The are older whales, first sighted in 1979 and 1980 respectively.

We were also treated to a nice pod of Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins and a very curious Humpback whale on Sunday, July 20th. This Humpback is new to the area and has yet to be identified. I hope you will join us out on the water soon.

Excellent weekend!

We had a great weekend, with lots of humpbacks, minkes and even a pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins on Sunday!

Saturday's weather was gorgeous, and we had at least 6 humpbacks concentrated in one area. They were all milling around feeding under the surface! The whales were all ones we've had in the area recently, including #0803, #0806, #0807, #0811, #0817, and two whales who actually have names, "Gavel" and "Rouge"!

In the hazy, humid weather, we also had an unusually huge amount of bugs aboard the boat, including a monarch and dragonfly on the top deck for awhile - 15 miles offshore.

Over the weekend, the whales ate a lot, too, and we got to see LOTS of whale poop:

On Sunday, the weather was foggier, but there were several humpbacks in the area, including #0811 and Rouge. We were also treated to a sight of 50-75 Atlantic white-sided dolphins, who leapt in the air several times.

Rouge

There were several mother-calf pairs in the dolphin pod, and the moms brought their calves right next to the boat- always a wonderful sight!

Dolphin and calf