Labels: calf, flipper slaps, humpback, minke, pinpoint

During our afternoon trip, we started out by finding a humpback doing some flipper slapping in the distance, but it soon stopped. We waited around for some time with a few humpbacks in the area going on some very long dives. We then came across Pinpoint, who was getting rather excited, and started tail lobbing around the boat. I think some passengers even got splashed at one point! After tail lobbing, Pinpoint went on a dive and came back up unbelievably close to the boat! Also appearing--it seemed--out of nowhere was Coral, just ahead of Pinpoint and also RIGHT next to us! The sun was hitting the water in just the right way, so we were able to get rare looks at the entire body of both animals under the water. Pinpoint and Coral stayed with us and were quite curious, with Pinpoint even doing a little spy hop to get a better look at the boat. We got such awesome looks, the photos I took don't do them justice! As we pulled away from these two they gave us a nice wave of their flukes!

Labels: Coral, humpbacks, pinpoint, spy-hopped

Labels: breaching, calf, Fulcrum, mother, pinpoint

Photo by Melissa Rocha

We had some of the same whales that we saw on our morning's trip, with one exception. On our morning trip we had Pinpoint doing some flipper slapping and Liner and Alpha were logging, and Venom had left the group. This afternoon though, Pinpoint was off in the distance with another whale watch boat and Venom was back with Alpha and Liner and was doing the flipper slapping this time! Venom did a great job of showing off her large pectoral flippers! It is uncommon to see baleen whales traveling together they are usually solitary, not to mention all adults. Liner is a large female who showed off for us a little by doing a beautiful tail lob before diving!

~Melissa Rocha, Lead Naturalist

Labels: Alpha, Liner, logging, pinpoint, tail lobbing, Venom

Photos by Melissa Rocha

Our morning trip gave us some incredible looks at some humpback whales. We had a group of four adult humpbacks all traveling together, one of them was Venom who broke off and went in another direction. The other three then started to do some logging or resting at the surface, one of them Pinpoint who was closet to us, wasn't that tired cause he started rolling all around right next to us! Pinpoint was really showing even splashing some people on board at one point! Liner who was next to Pinpoint also showed off a little by doing a nice tail lob before going on a dive. Alpha was the 3rd whale of the group but not as social as the others.
~ Melissa Rocha, Lead Naturalist

Labels: Alpha, humpbacks, Liner, pinpoint, tail lobbing, Venom

This morning we came across some heavy fog and a bit of rain, but the whales didn't mind it! And luckily, the rain cleared as we reached the bank. Soon we came across some open mouth feeding! We had both fin whales and humpback whales working at an area of bait; the fins doing great lunges and the humpbacks cooperatively bubble feeding! We were able to identify Alphorn, Pinpoint, and Vulture out of the group feeding together.

Labels: Alphorn, bubble feeding, fin whale, pinpoint, Vulture

Happy Fourth of July! Our afternoon trip on this beautiful day let us see a few whales we had seen on our morning trip and some Fin whales. We got some great looks at a mother and calf fin whale something we don't get to see all that often. A few other fin whales near by were lunge feeding. The humpbacks were also feeding we had about 10 different ones doing some open mouth feeding, blowing bubbles, and Pinpoint was there from this morning too! It was great to see that the whales were still doing so much feeding hours after our first trip. Some of the birds we saw on today's trip were Sooty, and Greater Shearwaters, several gulls, and some Wilson Storm Petrels.
~Melissa Rocha, Lead Naturalist

Labels: fin whale, great shearwater, lunge feeding, pinpoint, sooty shearwaters, Wilson Storm Petrels

The afternoon trip we went to the area we had been in this morning, and there was still bait fish all over! Lavalier and her calf were in the area, as were so many others. We had a pair of lunge feeding fin whales, bubble nets and kick feeding from humpbacks. We had Pinpoint and Cajun in the area, as well. Cajun gave us some amazing open mouths very close to the boat! We also got a few appearances from minkes in the area.
~ Emily Griffin, Naturalist

Labels: bait, cajun, fin whale, Lavalier, lunge feeding, minke whale, pinpoint

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

Mural photos taken by Melissa Rocha

We had a great trip this morning! We came right up on a humpback named Pinpoint doing some kick feeding! Then as we were watching that whale another large Humpback named Mural (photo) popped right up next to us! We also got some nice looks at a few fin whales that seemed to be looking for some food as well. There was a lot of bait in the water and birds everywhere!
~Melissa Rocha, Lead Naturalist

Labels: humpbacks, kick feeding, mural, pinpoint