Friday, July 1

Happy July all! The winds picked up this afternoon so we ran a single trip today. This morning we started our trip with a Basking shark.

Basking shark fin

Dorsal fin (left) and tail fin (right) of our Basking shark

While in the area a Minke whale appeared. It didn't take long to see that there were even more Minke whales in the area, 3 in total, all darting around. What a nice surprise so close to home. We eventually continued offshore but before getting to Jeffreys Ledge we came across a Fin whale.

Fin whales are HUGE. This is just a small portion of a Fin whale at the surface.

This whale was alternating between circling and doing a bit of traveling. Eventually we were able to determine that this was a familiar whale. Fin whale #9709 was here. We spent a bit more time with this adult female before continuing on offshore.

Fin whale #9709 swimming towards us!

Throughout the trip we passed by more Minke whales and had a few near our Fin whales, for we came across another Fin whale out on Jeffreys Ledge. We had in total 9 Minke whales for the day and another familiar Fin whale, #0331, seen just yesterday for the first time this season.

Fin whale #0331