Wednesday, August 26

A gorgeous day to spend time on the ocean and check out some awesome marine life. Today we saw 3 Ocean sunfish, 4 Minke whales (including on surface feeding!), a Blue shark and 3 Humpback whales. Calm seas and lots to look at that is for sure!

Ocean sunfish checking us out!

First whale of the day, a Minke whale

After checking out our first Minke whale seen inshore of the Isles of Shoals we next stopped on a Minke whale actively feeding on the surface.

Dorsal fin of the Minke whale surface feeding

Open mouth of our Minke whale above the waterline!

I personally have never actually seen this behavior from a Minke whale before so this was extremely impressive to watch, at least from my standpoint.

 Minke whale's mouth slightly agape with the baleen plates visible hanging from the upper jaw!

Mouth closed as our Minke whale captures plenty of fish!

This whale appeared to be maneuvering around the outskirts of a "field" of fish scales. Larger boats (want to clarify that this "field" was not left by any charter fishing boats in the area) had one way or another left a massive area of fish scales and fish floating at the surface.

All that white matter is actually fish scales; not foam from any whitewater!

Looks like our Minke whale may have been taking the opportunity to scoop up the fish we were seeing all around us. Our next stop was a Humpback whale we were seeing out in the distance. It was #0050. We got some phenomenal looks at this whale as it spent the majority of its time circling around the area.

Humpback whale #0050

#0050 swam right past the boat at one point!

We then moved on to another Humpback whale in the area but before long we realized there was yet another close by. Within minutes all three Humpback whales have moved in towards each other before partially separating once again! Mogul and Highlighter had moved into the area before we ultimately ended our time with #0050 and Mogul maneuvering around in synchrony.

Highlighter (left) and Mogul (right) heading off in different directions from one another

Highlighter

We shall see what we come across tomorrow as we head back offshore in search of some incredible marine mammals!