August 11, 2022
Thursday morning was gray and a little foggy, but the water
was calm and inviting. We saw several pods of harbor porpoise before passing
the Isles of Shoals. These small cetaceans are very difficult to photograph,
but this trip provided ample opportunity to try! We also found an ocean sunfish
before reaching Jeffreys Ledge.
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| harbor porpoise |
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| ocean sunfish |
Once we arrived on the Ledge, we were quickly surrounded by
humpback whales! We first spent time with a single whale named Mogul. Shortly
after, whales were popping up in every direction at varying distances. It became
hard to track how many there were, and no one knew where to look! There was
flipper slapping by some of the whales and even a double breach!
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| humpback flipper |
Seeing just
one humpback breach is pretty incredible, but for two to breach at once is amazing! At one point, two of the whales swam below the boat, which we were able
to see on our fish finder.
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| whales under the boat! |
We were able to identify a total of nine humpbacks:
Mogul, Zodiac, Dross, Tripod, Diablo, Pinball, Satula, Pixar, and Valley (who
was spotted as we headed back to the harbor). It was definitely an
unforgettable trip.
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| diving humpback |
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| Humpback diving |
Thursday afternoon continued to
be full of whales, a sight never taken for granted. The trip included 11
different humpback whales.Frequent "friends" such
as Pinball and Satula were sighted along with other recent culprits such as Valley,
Dyad, Diablo, Mogul and Pixar. We can't forget about the grey seal, probably
getting eyes on each of our passengers as it swam an entire circle around us. |
Grey seal
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.August 12, 2022
Friday was another gorgeous day on the ocean. The morning
trip started with a small group of harbor porpoises. Our first whale of the trip
was a humpback named Zodiac. While waiting for her to resurface, a
second humpback entered the area. This was a whale named Draco, who we have not
seen yet this season. We then found another humpback named Dyad. While we were
watching Dyad, a blue shark appeared at the surface. The shark was only near us
for about a minute, but we were still able to get some great looks at it.
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| blue shark |
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| humpback whale |
Our next sighting was a pod of about 100 Atlantic
white-sided dolphins. This pod was very low-key, spreading themselves around
the boat and coming in for closer looks off and on.
We found another humpback after leaving the dolphins: Patches. Patches is featured on the
brochure for Granite State Whale Watch. He never raised his flukes, but he has a
familiar dorsal fin that the captain recognized.
On our way back to Rye harbor,
we spotted an unusual-looking ocean sunfish. This animal had fresh wounds which
appeared to be from an entanglement. Hopefully this animal
recovers quickly!
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| injured ocean sunfish |
We spotted a second pod of dolphins before ultimately
arriving back at the harbor.
Friday afternoon, we found Dyad again, who surprised us with a few tail lobs before she was briefly joined by an unknown whale.
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| Dyad tail-lobbing |
The mystery whale did a few flipper slaps before the pair separated.
Patches showed us a nice look at his fluke, which has also adorned our brochure cover for years!
Then a trio of humpbacks was seen swimming together: Spoon, Jabiru and Quote.
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| two of the three humpbacks swimming close to gear and Cape Ann. |
Our trip home passed by an ocean sunfish, rounding out the afternoon!
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| ocean sunfish |
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