Wednesday, September 3

What a day! The variety of marine life near Jeffreys Ledge has been great lately!  Today we saw a humpback whale (named Owl!), 4 fin whales (including Dingle!), at least 5 minke whales, a blue shark, a harbor seal and a fun pod of about 15-20 harbor porpoises!  

Owl the humpback whale was great as usual. She is a really mellow whale who often comes right up to the boat. Check out her photo in the brochure!  Today she surfaced close to us a few times, and then was wandering around the area a bit. She even graced us with some “evidence of recent feeding….” several times!

We also spotted a minke whale before heading out in search of more activity. Before long, we found a couple of fin whales!  To my surprise, these whales were Dingle and his new buddy with whom he has been seen with many times since last week!  This pair was just slowly cruising beneath the surface, giving us some really great views.  Also near the fin whales was a blue shark! This creature was hanging out near the surface and even swam towards us before heading off in the opposite direction.

We saw yet another spout in the distance so we kept going to check it out. Turned out to be 2 more fin whales and about 4 minke whales!  Awesome!

Before we knew it, it was time to head back, but on our way home we kept seeing marine life! A frolicking harbor seal was pretending it was a porpoise and it repeatedly broke the surface, traveling along quite quickly.  And then as we passed by the Isles of Shoals, we came across a large pod of harbor porpoises! These 3-5 foot marine mammals are generally quite shy of boats but this group was really active giving us all some nice views.

The bird life was also decent offshore. Sightings included several great shearwaters, a couple of Cory’s shearwaters, a laughing gull and many northern gannets!  Such a beautiful September day on the ocean!