Monday, July 20

This morning we started with a large Fin whale on the move. Unfortunately we lost track of this whale as the fog passed over us.

First Fin whale of the day before the fog rolled in

While we were unable to relocate our Fin whale there were plenty of Minke whales around to check out. In total we saw 9 Minke whales all throughout our travels.

One of our Minke whales getting quite close to one of the many buoys out in the open ocean. We are always keeping an eye out to make sure any whale we see is gear-free and hopefully remains that way while we are there. Luckily this whale scooted around the gear as we watched it surface a few minutes later heading in a different direction

After a quick stop at Boon Island to see a few seals we pressed on to some other offshore waters.

Seals

Before the trip was over we ended up finding a pair of Fin whales traveling along together. One of our whales was a familiar friend as we found Crow (first seen by us yesterday for the first time on Jeffreys Ledge this year) along with another large friend.

Crow the Fin whale

Other Fin whale moving around with Crow

Fin whale surfacing so close to us as we sat there watching them turn into towards us, swim alongside us and eventually move on

At one point we even had a Minke whale appear to join along in the movements of these Fin whales giving us a beautiful comparison between a Minke whale and one of the second-largest mammals on Earth, a Fin whale.

Fin whale body in the foreground and Minke whale in the background. A great snapshot of how large Fin whales really are!

This afternoon we were excited to go find some of the same whales we had come across this morning. Little did we know the whales had other ideas. We ended up doing a lot of searching this afternoon in some beautiful conditions. We did spot 2 Blue sharks and eventually ended up finding 5 Minke whales in total. No Fin whales in sight but we got some really nice looks at many of our Minke whales moving through the area.

One of our afternoon Minke whales

We also were fortunate enough to find ourselves near Boon Island again to snap a few photos of many of the seals hauled out on the rocks.

More seals to see this afternoon!

We are always incredible fortunate to spend time with just one wild whale we go in search for and what we like so much about wildlife is that it is always different and new each time we are in search of such incredible nature.