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9.15.2009

September 15, 2009

We had a great trip today! It began with fantastic weather and a couple of humpbacks going on some dives. While watching our first whales of the day, we spotted some splashing going on in the distance. We went to check it out and found a mother and calf doing some flipper slapping! I didn't get the best look at mom's fluke, so I'm still working on an ID, but we got some great looks at her and her little one flipper slapping in unison and swimming around our boat. There were a few times when they got super close to us, with mom even coming up between our bow pulpits! This pair seemed to calm down after a bit, and we moved forward to some more whales. We found a pair of VERY large adult humpbacks traveling together with another individual nearby. This group was mainly diving, but we were able to get some good looks at them. Just as we were about to head home, we heard from another whale watching boat that there were some humpbacks feeding not too far away. We decided to take a few minutes to check this out. When we arrived, we got a few looks at humpbacks kick feeding and open mouth feeding! There were 5 or 6 humpbacks in this group, and a whale named Draco was with them. The food seemed to move on, and the whales began diving, but the best treat was stumbling upon a pod of white-sided dolphin! The dolphin enjoyed jumping in the wake created by our boat, and there were whales all around us! It was certainly an exciting day.
~Jackie O'Mara, Naturalist

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8.19.2009

August 19, 2009 Morning Trip

On this morning trip we came across some Atlantic white-sided dolphins! A special treat as we don't get to see dolphins all that often out on our trips. We also came across some humpbacks whales, first we spotted Alpha doing some deep feeding; we would see some bubbles being blow under the surface, then he would surface with his mouth just slightly open straining water. There was also another whale close by Alpha but only up at the surface for a few minutes. On our way home we passed by Fulcrum and her calf doing some logging or resting, giving us really nice looks at their bodies. We could see how big the calf is, yet pretty small compared to mom Fulcrum. ~Melissa Rocha, Lead Naturalist, photos by Melissa Rocha

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