We have had some phenomenal trips recently and yet the whales still continue to keep things interesting. Who knows if any/all of this activity will continue to stick around but, we have certainly enjoyed seeing so much marine life lately. Today we had sighting after sighting of all sorts of marine creatures. In total we saw 3 Minke whales, 3 Ocean sunfish, a pair of Fin whales, 5 Humpback whales and ~150 Atlantic white-sided dolphins in an absolute feeding frenzy today. Wow. We started the day with an Ocean sunfish, passing by a few others throughout our travels, before making our way over to a pair of Humpback whales.
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| Ocean sunfish to start our trip with today |
Our Humpback whale pair was Canopy and Ase, whales we saw for the first time this season just yesterday, and both of them still swimming side by side one another.
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| Canopy and Ase |
We then checked out a third Humpback whale in the are that had broken away from the pair. This was a new visitor to the Jeffreys Ledge region this season. Hello Nike!
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| Nike |
While spending time with these Humpback whales we spotted another pair of whales slightly further offshore. It was a pair of Fin whales. These whales were on the move and initially we had a tricky time attempting to stay with them. Suddenly, they changed direction, slowed down and it wasn't long until we knew exactly who these whales were. It was a mother/calf pair and to make this sighting even better it was Comet and her calf!
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| Comet |
We last saw this pair at the end of June, literally months ago!!! What a great find to see them back in the area and see just how big the calf has gotten since the last time we saw this pair. So phenomenal and such incredible looks.
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| Comet (foreground) and her calf (background) swimming so close to the boat! (above and below) |
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| Comet and calf going on a dive |
The excitement however, was far from over. Along with the 3 Minke whales sighted during our trip we ended up making our way to a group of dolphins but ended up by-passing them for the time being because there was a whale jumping clear out of the water beyond our toothed whales! There was another mother/calf pair in the area but this time it was a Humpback whale pair. The calf was leaping out of the water and continued to do so as we made our way into the area. This whale was breaching, rolling over and flipper slapping while mom remained below the waterline.
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| Humpback whale calf breaching above the water |
We saw just about every part of our calf while mom had a much different idea. This adult Humpback whale spent most of her time under the water and, at least for the moment, we do not know exactly who we were watching. Regardless, we got some incredible looks at these whales as they slowly continued moving along.
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| Second mother/calf pair of the day; a Humpback whale pair! |
Oh, but we were still not done. We made our way back to our dolphins and ended the day watching a large group of Atlantic white-sided dolphins circle around the area while tons of birds (seagulls, shearwaters and gannets) flew around also attempting to snatch up some fish!
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| Plenty of birds wanted in on the feeding action along with the dolphins! |
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| Birds were everywhere around our dolphins including Northern gannets (larger bird in this photo) and plenty of seagulls |
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| Great shearwater |
Birds above, whales below, and us gazing at all the activity. Just incredible.
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| Atlantic white-sided dolphin (above and below) |
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| Multiple dolphins leaping through the ocean |
As I made mention to all of our passengers today, seeing even half of what we saw today would still have been an incredible day but so many amazing looks at so many types of marine life today was truly awe-inspiring.
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