Aug 14, 2020

Friday morning, we spotted some splashing in the distance. A small group of Atlantic white sided dolphins were cruising around. Before we knew it, a humpback whale surfaced nearby! It seems this summer that the relationship between dolphins and humpbacks has been unusually strong! The humpback, known as Jabiru, was blowing some bubble clouds, likely to concentrate her prey. She also seemed to be slowly traveling and spending lots of time at the surface!

Humpback whale with Atlantic white sided dolphins

Atlantic white sided dolphin

The Atlantic white sided dolphins were often near her, but occasionally would speed off in various directions, only to return to Jabiru. It was quite the morning. We searched around a bit and didn’t find anything else in the area, so we got our last looks at Jabiru, still with the dolphins. 

Humpback diving

Humpback whale, Jabiru

Friday afternoon, we found a couple of ocean sunfish close to each other. We got great looks at one of them! Ocean sunfish are really weird looking, but also really cool! They migrate to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico in the winter (who wouldn’t love that life??) and spend a lot of time just basking in the sun!

Ocean sunfish

We had a brief look at a rare leatherback sea turtle! This was the first leatherback I have seen in many years (although the boat has seen a few recently).  It was a passing sighting and as soon as I pointed it out, the turtle dove. Leatherbacks are known to be here in the summer, but it is unusual to actually see one! They are quite shy.

Moving on, we found the humpback whale Jabiru once again. No dolphins with her this time but she did spend a lot of time at the surface where we could all get a great look at her.

Humpback whale blow

Humpback whale, Jabiru, diving

Jabiru's path, captured on our "fish finder", diving to the ocean floor (324 feet down) and presumably stirring up the bottom dwelling fish for lunch!

Our course home took us between the islands at the Isles of Shoals. We got a surprise look at a group of grey seals just between Appledore Island and Smuttynose Island! These grey seals seemed quite interested in us, although still a bit shy as any wild animal should be.

Grey seals at the Isles of Shoals

It appears that some wind is in the forecast so we will be safely staying in the harbor tomorrow.