Thursday, July 20

Today provided surprise after surprise for us in the Gulf of Maine. This morning we saw 14 minke whales! So many minkes; they were everywhere! We even found a pair of these whales. They traversed through the water together for the majority of time we watched them.

One of the minke whales in our pair. You can see the footprint (smooth slick patch of water) in the background where the second minke whale had recently been

Pair of minke whales in the calm seas

Another morning minke whale

Along with all those whales we attempted to watch a fin whale (unfortunately to no avail since it remained under the water and did not resurface), a blue shark and our first sighting of an ocean sunfish!

First sunfish of the season!

As if that wasn't enjoyable enough, during our trip in, a minke whale started breaching behind us. We watched this whale launch itself out of the water multiple times. Whales breaching is always an impressive sight!

Breaching minke whale near the Isles of Shoals!!!

This afternoon, our first sighting of the trip was a pod of ~125 Atlantic white-sided dolphins! 😲 Not only have we seen these toothed-whales only a couple of times this season, this is the largest pod we have encountered so far.

Atlantic white-sided dolphin

Multiple Atlantic white-sided dolphins surfacing near us

Baby dolphin!

After some time watching these maneuverable mammals we ended up finding 5 minkes whales during the reminder of the trip. What a day.

Afternoon minke whale