October 5, 2025

Another beautiful day on the ocean! Today, we started out looking at a humpback whale. As we waited for it to resurface, we noticed a pair of humpbacks in the distance. Then, the original whale surfaced and was heading toward the pair. Before we knew it, we had four humpback whales all together! Two even decided to fluke at the same time! Eventually, one of the whales moved on, and we left the trio to continue to search for more activity.

Two humpbacks

Two humpbacks diving

Soon, we encountered several blue sharks, followed by a thresher shark that jumped out of the water!! Only a few lucky people saw that, but apparently, it was incredible! Several harbor porpoises briefly appeared, as did a shy harbor seal hanging out in a group of great shearwaters!

Next, we saw a small group of dolphins nearby, but first we checked out an ocean sunfish! Sea conditions were glassy, so we got some amazing looks at this critter before spending a little time with the Atlantic white-sided dolphins.

Ocean sunfish

Common murre

Atlantic white-sided dolphins

Another pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins showed up—this one was a larger group of about 75 and included at least three common dolphins in the mix! Cool!! One of the dolphins repeatedly slapped its flukes, the reason for which we don’t know!

As we were about to head for home, more dolphins showed up! One of these was continually leaping out of the water and landing flat on its belly! Weirdo. Also, lots of great and Cory's shearwaters were hanging out with the dolphins! So much fun!

White-sided dolphin and great shearwater

Leaping white-sided dolphin!

We passed another ocean sunfish, and as we continued for home, a pair of humpback whales were snoozing at the surface. These two dove, and a few minutes later, one of the whales surfaced right off our bow—really close! The whale, named New Jersey, then took a nap right next to us for about five minutes!

Great day! I can’t believe our season ends in just a week!