Thursday, August 27

Today we were fortunate enough to have beautiful ocean conditions and some beautiful whale activity. We saw 3 Minke whales, a Fin whale and two Humpback whales throughout our time offshore today. After some searching we watched a large Fin whale cruise by us before we began watching one of the 2 Humpback whales in the area. Our Fin whale has a distinctive dorsal fin shape and we were able to match it to a whale that was first seen by our research affiliates, Blue Ocean Society, in 2003!

Fin whale #0354 on the move this afternoon

As we moved onto our first Humpback whale this whale spent almost the entire time we were in the area circling around us.

Humpback whale in pristine ocean conditions

This whale was circling around so much that we ended up sitting with our engines shut off for the majority of the time. We watched this whale move in, towards and past the boat so many times!

#0050 swam so close to the boat as it moved through the water

#0050 diving in towards the boat

As we watched this whale a second Humpback whale was moving through the area. After a bit more time with our first Humpback whale, #0050, we made our way over to the other one.

If you look closely you can see a Minke whale out in the distance (on the left) as our Humpback was moving around (on the right) in this photo

One of the 3 Minke whale seen on our trip today

Our second Humpback whale was being much more relaxed than #0050. This whale was surfacing for a few breaths and then just barely bringing its tail to the surface.

It almost looked like slow-motion when our Humpback whale dove each time

We watched this whale slowly move through the area until we realized we were once again surrounded by both of our Humpback whales. #0050 continued to circle and create bubble clouds while this other whale was slowly on the move. After a bit of time checking out this whale's unique markings we figured out exactly who was here. We had a new visitor to the area this season, Geometry!

Geometry

We got a few more looks at both of our whales before easing our way out of the area and heading for home. What a nice way to spend the day, most of the time shut down, enjoying these wild animals go about their day.