Friday, Aug 7

Last week, one of our passengers said that it was pretty eye-opening to realize what else is happening on Earth aside from our day to day lives. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the laundry, grocery shopping, office jobs, kids’ activities, etc and to forget about the rest of the planet.  Today we had all sorts of marine life living their lives not all that far away from where we live ours.  The best part of what we do on each and every whale watching trip is seeing marine life in their environment, living their lives, and on their terms.  We only see what they let us see, and that is pretty special.

This morning we started off with several minke whales before seeing a fin whale in the distance. This huge fin whale was Crow,  a whale who was first seen in 1987 in New York.  Crow was moving around a bit, possible chasing down some prey, and we got some beautiful views. As we were watching Crow, an ocean sunfish was spotted. This large fish was pretty docile and let us come pretty close to it.

As we headed on, we found a humpback whale who goes by the ID # 0050. This was one of the first whales identified back in the mid-1970’s! We don’t know how old he is but know that he was first seen 39 years ago! Pretty impressive!  A minke whale and another ocean sunfish were in that area as well.

We continued on to find another humpback whale named Quill as well as several minke whales and a blue shark.

As we headed back to port, we encountered a small group of Atlantic white sided dolphins! We just never know what we’ll find out here!

This afternoon, we found several minke whales before coming upon a fin whale. This was likely Crow, but this afternoon, he was being quite busy and we weren’t able to get good looks at him. So is wildlife!  We did find several more minke whales in the area before coming upon another, more cooperative fin whale. This large whale has not yet been identified but was circling around the area, likely feeding, and giving us great looks.  

 A bit further into the trip we found 2 humpback whales. These were the same 2 whales we found during our morning trip: 0050 and Quill. Several times as we were watching them, they would surface together and then go separate ways, only to join up briefly again. 

Aside from the marine life listed above, we also encountered several harbor seals and a few harbor porpoises during the trips. The variety of marine life around Jeffreys Ledge is often quite amazing as well as inspiring!