Monday, August 3

The waves continued to build as the wind continued to blow over the course of our trips today. For some, these conditions were quite the adventure all on their own. As for the whales, this morning we ended up in an area where we had 4 Humpback whales on the move. We could see spouts around us and got some nice looks at a few of the whales that were spending a bit more time at the surface. We got a quick look at Bayou before seeing Wy steadily plugging along.

Wy the Humpback whale

Humpback whale spout

This afternoon we first started with a Minke whale being quite active. The first time this whale was seen was when it decided to jump clear out of the water! This whale breached a few more times before it decided to instead almost porpoise through the ocean, creating plenty of whitewater each time it got a breath of air!

Whitewater galore as this Minke whale darted through the waves

Our active Minke whale appeared to sometimes "surf" down the waves

We passed this whale off to our other whale watching friends and moved along to yet another Minke whale in the area. We got a few very nice looks at this whale when it suddenly decided to surface right next to our boat for a few moments in time. Great sight!

Second Minke whale

We ended our time on the water with two more whales but this time it was a pair of the second largest animals on Earth; Fin whales! While these whales seemed to continually surface in a different direction we managed to get some nice looks at these massive mammals.

Our Fin whales, at one point, swam right underneath us. Granted they were about 150ft below us but you can see we picked them up on our depth-finder (we were in 250ft of water and the horizontal blobs are the two whales!)

After a few glances at our photos we were even able to identify both of these whales. One whale was first sighted in 2009 while the other was a VERY familiar fin...Dingle!

Our Fin whale pair at the surface

We have yet to have the opportunity to see Dingle this year so we are thrilled to know this whale is back in the area for another feeding season. Welcome back to Jeffreys Dingle!

Dingle!