Sept 24-25. 2020

Thursday, Sept 24, 2020

After only having one trip in the past 2 weeks, we were excited to get back on the water in search of whales. The storms that had passed by seemed to have stirred up the ocean quite a bit as the marine life was a little challenging to find in our normal haunts.  We spotted a minke whale that wasn’t all that cooperative. But then we came upon a group of Atlantic white sided dolphins!! These animals were flanking the boat and just milling around, allowing us for some great views! 

A second minke was seen, but this one was also elusive. 

As we continued on, we found a very friendly young minke whale that swam under the boat several times and surface very close by! These encounters are extremely rare, especially for minke whales!  

Minke whale moving from right to left

Minke whale blow

A grey seal was also in the area, rounding out our trip.

 Friday, Sept 25, 2020

This trip was an exercise in patience! We headed to a different area from yesterday's trip in search of other activities, only to find a whole lot of nothing. We circled around the Ledge, only to end up back where we saw whales yesterday. Oh well...now we know where the whales are not!  As we came into an area with hundreds of shearwaters and fulmars (sea birds), we slowed down in hopes that some more activity was under the surface. We were right! A pair of fin whales and a minke whale soon appeared! Although we had been searching for whales for over 3.5 hours at this point, we were ecstatic to finally find what we had been looking for!  After several looks at the two giants, we waited for over 20 minutes before seeing them again as we were leaving the area. These whales really know how to hold their breath!

Fin whale blow

Fin whale back

Fin whale jagged dorsal fin