Sunday, June 26

Over the past few days we have been traveling far offshore to see most of the whale activity we have been sharing recently. So it was a very pleasant surprise today when we came across whale activity much closer to home. This morning we saw 3 Minke whales on our way offshore. By the end of the trip we had tallied 12 Humpback whales! Our first pair of whales for the day was a fantastic surprise when we quickly realized a VERY familiar tail had returned to the Gulf of Maine. Pinball was back AND with a calf! What a surprise to find this pair to start the day.

Do you see the small dorsal fin on the left side of this whale's tail? That's Pinball's 2016 calf. What a great pair to come across today!

We then spent time with another mother, Clamp and calf. More Humpback whales appeared and disappeared as we ventured to a whale being active out in the distance. Weren't we lucky when this whale never ceased that activity. We saw flipper slapping, the whale roll over on its back, lobtailing, and a total of 19 breaches! What an incredible experience to all on board.

Humpback whale upside down showcasing it's white flippers high in the air

Breaching Humpback whale

Head breach

Oh look, another breach!

To round out the trip we spent time with a trio of Humpback whales on the move. We are still in the process of attempting to get IDs of all of our whales from the day but two of the whales in this group of three were Glo-stick and Neves.

This afternoon we headed back out to the same area. In total, we saw 9 Humpback whales. We once again started with Pinball and calf but soon left spread out knowing more whales had been in the area during the morning hours.

Pinball and her calf at the surface

It did not take long to find some more whales and familiar ones at that. After passing a few single whales at the surface we moved towards a trio of whales including Clamp and calf. Another whale was also on the move with this pair. Once again we are still in the works of getting all the whales IDed so still working on this third whale of the group. Before leaving we even got a brief glimpse of Sabot the Humpback whale that suddenly appeared in all the mix of our whales.

Sabot the Humpback whale

On our travels home our captain got eyes on a Basking shark close by giving us a chance to check out this large fish before continuing back to Rye Harbor.