What a day!! Honestly, we were a bit concerned about the
wind and seas as we were leaving the dock this morning. Often, when the wind
persists, it will build up the seas, making for an unpleasant ride. Although we
took a little spray at the beginning of our whale watching, the wind turned off
(yes, that is my official term) and the seas calmed right down, making for a
lovely trip.
Our first stop was on a humpback whale mother with her calf.
I was excited to see this was Spoon, my all-time favorite whale! When I was a kid, I adopted Spoon through
another organization, and you can imagine my exhilaration when I saw her for
the first time, about 20 years ago! Spoon and her new calf are always a
welcomed sighting!
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| Spoon |
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| Spoon |
We soon spotted a second pair of humpback whales-
Shuffleboard and her calf! After they
dove, we looked at our fish finder, and saw two large blobs under the boat.
Just as I was telling everyone about the whales being under us, the calf
surfaced right next to us followed by the mom!! Amazing! As we watched this pair, we saw even more
spouts in the distance so we continued on.
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| Shuffleboard |
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| Shuffleboard's calf |
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| Mogul |
A minke whale popped up, and then 2 separate male humpbacks,
Hornbill and Mogul. Hornbill was on the
move, but Mogul stuck around. He even
decided to show us “evidence of feeding” by leaving a large brown cloud behind
him! Lovely, Mogul! While watching Mogul, Captain Pete spotted a
lone Atlantic white sided dolphin swimming by. Usually, dolphins are found
swimming in pods but sometimes the males will wander off on their own.
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| dolphin |
Then we saw another pair of whales coming towards us! These
were 2 adults hanging out together. We later identified them as Tornado and
Sigma, when they gave us some closer looks as we watched Owl and her calf (3rd
calf of the day!!). Then Mogul decided he didn’t want to be left out so he came
by as well and before we knew it, we had 5 humpbacks and a couple of minke
whales all together! Owl and her calf
gave us an incredible sighting as they both dove in unison, one fluke right
behind the other! So special!
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| Owl and calf |
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| Tornado |
We saw other blows in the area but unfortunately were out of
time and had to head back to Rye Harbor. Such a great day of fall whale
watching!
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