We had a beautiful close to the Fourth of July weekend! Our sunset cruise featured great weather and calm seas. We also had some great whales! First, we found a humpback mother and calf pair. We got some nice looks at these two before spotting four humpbacks traveling together ahead of us. We moved forward to see these whales, who were heading south quite quickly. At one point we had three on one side of our boat and one on the other! After getting some looks we decided to explore the bank a bit. We headed north and found our mom and calf from earlier. There also seemed to be a few more individuals in the area, but they were difficult for us to get an exact location on. As we approached mom and baby, we saw a breach! We got a little closer and mom gave us a few waves with her pectoral fin and did some flipper slapping! We saw mom's fluke, which I'm working on an ID of, and as we were leaving she gave us another wave goodbye!
~Jackie O'Mara, Naturalist

Labels: breaching, calf, flukes, humpbacks, mother

Labels: fin whale, flukes, humpbacks, minke whale, pinpoint

Despite the heavy fog this morning, we were able to find whales! We came across a humpback pair that looked like a juvenile and another adult traveling together. We stayed with these two the entire trip while they went on some dives, possibly looking for food. Although I wasn't able to ID these two, we still got some nice, close looks at them and some beautiful flukes!
~Jackie O'Mara, Naturalist

Labels: flukes, humpbacks, juvenile

It seems third time was the charm today. Our sunset cruise began in the same very dense fog that was around earlier in the day. We lucked out though, and it cleared up half way into our voyage! The first whale we found was a minke! This little whale stayed near us for a bit before swimming away, allowing us to get some good looks at it. We then saw a breach from a humpback! It happened quite quickly, so only a few of us saw it, but we stayed with this whale and got some great close looks at it's body including it's fluke. This individual even treated us to a little roll - perhaps interested in the school of sandlance in the water!
~Jackie O'Mara, Naturalist

Labels: bait, breaching, flukes, minke whale, rolling

We saw some interesting things on our morning adventure. In all, we saw at least six humpbacks, if not more! We first found a few single whales going on some deep dives. While they were at the surface, we were able to get some great looks at their flukes. Moving on to some more whales a ways away, we came across TWO mother and calf humpback pairs, and possibly had a few more single whales in the vicinity. Both mother-calf pairs got close to our boat, so we were able to get great looks at them! Additionally, we spotted many birds on the water, along with some very large striped bass and HUGE schools of sandlance (a favorite treat for humpbacks!) in the water.
~Jackie O'Mara, Naturalist

Labels: bait, calf, flukes, humpbacks, mother

Labels: calf, flukes, humpbacks, mother

We had several Humpback whales today! We had a Mother and calf, as well as several juveniles, and a couple other adults, though no one really wanted to show off their ID's by showing us enough of their flukes for the most part. One of the whales we did get a good look at it's fluke but we are still trying to get an ID on it. Once we do we will post the fluke and ID.
~ Naturalist Jackie O'Mara, Photo by Melissa Rocha, Lead Naturalist

Labels: calf, flukes, humpbacks, mother

Photos from the day's whale watch taken by Kristina Campbell:


Photo Courtesy of Kristina Campbell


Photo Courtesy of Kristina Campbell


Photo Courtesy of Kristina Campbell


This is what Kristina and her daughter Maya had to say about the trip:

"The views of these extraordinary creatures were magnificent and a day at
sea on your comfortable boat was the icing on the cake."

Labels: flukes, humpback, logging

Photo by naturalist Melissa Rocha

Today was our second trip of the 2009 season, and it was a great day on the water! We saw several small pods (groups) of Atlantic White-sided Dolphins, which are toothed whales. We also found about 4 different Humpback whales! We stayed with one whale at the end for a while. That whale gave us great looks by swimming right next to us under the surface of the water. The whale also gave us a look at the underside of its tail or fluke when it went down for a dive. The underside has a black and white pattern that we can use to ID each whale! As soon as I know who the whale is I will be sure to post it on here.

-Melissa Rocha, Naturalist

Labels: dolphins, flukes, humpbacks, ID