Sunday, August 14

How lucky is it when you can look in any direction around the boat and see a whale? Well, that is what happened multiple times during both of our trips today! This morning we saw 4 Humpback whales, 10 Fin whales, at least 10 Minke whales and an Ocean sunfish. Our Minke whales consistently surfaced around us as we spent time watching so many of the other whales around.

Very distinctly-shaped dorsal fin on this Minke whale

We started our trip with a Humpback whale pair; Pinball and her calf. All eyes remained mostly on the calf who tail breached, lobtailed, rolled, flipper slapped and tail slashed around.

Pinball's calf rolled upside down and started to lobtail

Flipper slapping

What happens when a whale tail-breaches so close to the boat that the large lens you have is too big to capture it all

Half spy-hop and half head breach by the calf

We also saw Owl the Humpback whale before heading further offshore to investigate other spouts we were seeing on the horizon. All those spouts turned out to be Fin whales. At one point we had 5 Fin whales all darting around one certain spot. Wow.

Fin whale

Large Fin whale

The day wrapped up when we passed by an Ocean sunfish on our travels home just before passing through the Isles of Shoals.

Ocean sunfish moving right in towards the boat

This afternoon we started the trip with 4 Fin whales all crossing paths with one another; moving this way and that.

Fin whale

Once again Minke whales (11 in total) appeared all throughout our travels. In total, we also saw 8 Fin whales and 4 Humpback whales. Owl was seen doing a bit of traveling and this time both Pinball and her calf spent the afternoon resting at the surface.

Owl the Humpback whale

While we spent time watching Pinball and her calf there were multiple times when the calf decided to plop its tail right on the center of mom's head. Yep, that's right. Nothing like a little nudge/snuggle/possibly attempt to wake up mom care-of a youngster alongside her. Pinball however, didn't seem to mind as she did not react, at least from our vantage point, being smacked in the head by the calf's tail. Nothing like a calf's love ;)

Pinball and her calf

Pinball and her calf so close to one another