August 11, 2021

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Lots of whales on Jeffreys Ledge today! We began our day by passing by a dozen or so harbor porpoises. When we got close to the area where the whale have been recently, we saw a lot of blows, and also a lot of boats. We passed by a pair of humpback whales that were being watched by another whale watch boat. When whales are so prevalent, we don’t like to crowd them with multiple boats. We kept going to find Pinball, one of our adoptable whales! She was taking short dives and we saw her distinctive flukes several times. At one point a fishing boat likely trolling for tuna motored by and we were afraid that the fishing hooks might get snagged on Pinball, but it appeared that she was unharmed... this time.

 

Next we saw a familiar pair of humpbacks, Spoon and Chromosome. In true Spoon fashion, the pair was napping. 

Over the radio, we heard that some dolphins were in the area so we headed there, passing by another whale named Pixar. The pod of Atlantic white sided dolphins were fantastic, racing around and zooming by the boat.

We then found another pair of humpbacks, Frost and Clamp. They disappeared for a few moments, and I turned to ask the captain, “where did they go?” and a second later a giant tail flew out of the water next to us! Clamp made her presence known! She continued to tail breach and tail lob for a bit while Frost was casually calm nearby.

Our trip home took us by an ocean sunfish and also a small group of harbor porpoises.

 

Ocean sunfish

In the afternoon, we left Rye Harbor and didn’t get more than a few hundred meters outside of the jetties before we had our first sighting! An ocean sunfish was hanging out and posed very nicely for photos as we made sure everyone on the boat got to see it, including Nancy and Barb on the upper deck who claim they don’t really love ocean sunfish. We are trying to change their minds 😊

 

Ocean Sunfish

Our first whales were humpbacks Clamp and Frost, with Pixar in the distance. This time it was Frost who tail breached! Out of nowhere, a second pair joined, Valley and Jawa, so now we had four humpback whales all together. At one point, three of the whales swam under our boat (as seen on our fish finder) while one whale crossed in front of the bow. Atlantic white-sided dolphins were everywhere, leaping here and there.

Our "fish finder" showing 3 whales under our boat!

Unfortunately, the fun was ruined by a sail boater who drove right over the whales and came within a few feet of our boat. Not cool. Although no laws were obviously broken (the east coast only has guidelines on how to approach whales), they could have been charged with harassment of a marine mammal, or in this case, four marine mammals. The whales came close to our boat, but our engines were turned off and we were drifting, not actively maneuvering around the group. For those of us who work with whales on a daily basis, this was infuriating to see that the boaters had no concern for the whales’ well-being or any respect for wildlife.

Anyone know this boat or the guys? They are in some serious need of education on not only boating around whales, but also other boats!

Look at how close this boat approached the whale! Not cool!

As we watched the circus unfold, another pair of humpback whales were seen in the distance with one of them repeatedly tail breaching. Cool to see even from a distance!

Further out, our last stop, was another group of four humpbacks including Quote, Quill, Spoon and Chromosome. Although these whales were being active before we arrived, breaching and flipper slapping, they appeared to be tuckered out when we got there. Only Quote fluked, and the other three were identified only by their dorsal fins.