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Sunday, June 15, 2014

Happy Father's Day!

Wishing all the fathers who joined us today, and fathers everywhere, a very happy day! It was a beautiful day to be on the water with sightings of Fin whales on both of our trips. This morning we started with one inside of Jeffreys Ledge.
Fin whale #1 of the day
Eventually this whale seemed to be swimming closer to shore and we wanted to head offshore so we parted ways and pressed on. We got the chance to end our trip with two other Fin whales and got some incredible looks at both of them. One of these whales was a familiar fin for us. It was #9618, a whale first sighted in the Gulf of Maine in 1984. 30 years later and this whale is still showing up to feed in the area!
Welcome back to the Ledge Fin whale #9618
What a fun sighting for the day. With a few more looks at this known whale we decided to check out the other whale in the area to get some photo-documentation of this other animal before it was time to head home.
The other Fin whale cruising around the area this morning

Check out the interesting markings along the body of this Fin whale
By documenting everything we see on our trips we can continue to learn about all the kinds of marine life that utilizes Jeffreys Ledge year after year.
Fin whales are so large!
This afternoon we did a bit of exploring since we had such incredibly calm conditions. While sightings came up short it is always good to do some searching as we never know what is out there until you look. Eventually we made our way back towards where we had seen whales in the morning. 2 Fin whales and a Minke whale were now meandering around.
Hello flat calm ocean and a massive Fin whale!
Soon though there was another creature close by. It was a Basking shark! What a nice find to add to our sightings as we got the chance to see one of the second largest sharks in the world (Basking shark) and a couple of the second largest whales in the world (Fin whale).
Basking shark spending time in the area too!

If you look through all the pollen on the water (the tons of yellow marks on the water) you can see our Basking shark
Beautiful weather and some great sightings today certainly made for a very successful Father's Day out on the open ocean.
Fin whale exhaling

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