August 23-25, 2023
Wednesday morning, we passed a harbor seal and a minke whale
before finding the humpback whale named Clamp! We watched her for a bit before
moving on, and then found Pinball and her calf! The pair continues to look good
after her entanglement a couple weeks ago.
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Clamp diving
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| Pinball diving |
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| Pinball and calf |
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| Pinball swimming a little to close to more gear! |
We spotted another blow in the distance and was surprised to
see that it was Clamp again! She had moved a good distance from the first
sighting. While watching Clamp, a blue shark surfaced next to the
boat.
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| Clamp's blow |
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| Clamp diving |
Then we found another mom/calf pair: Valley! These two were then suddenly
joined with another adult whale, Gunslinger! Things are definitely feeling like
fall with some new whales showing up!
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| Gunslinger |
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| Valley and calf |
Wednesday afternoon, we passed by a nice group of harbor
porpoises within a mile of leaving the harbor. Then we heard some fishing boats
talking about a humpback whale just behind the Isles of Shoals. We searched
that area for a while, without finding the whale so we continued on, seeing
some seals bobbing around in the water close to the islands. We spotted a blow
in the distance, slowed down and waited for the whale to resurface. As we waited,
we saw some splashing in the distance. Dolphins! We watched the pod of Atlantic
white-sided dolphins for a bit before resuming our search for the whale.
Soon we saw another spout. This was Mogul!! (Sorry, Merry!)
We’ve seen Mogul off and on this season but not regularly. Mogul was very
cooperative, surfacing close to our starboard side, swimming do the side and behind the boat, and then
swam up the port side before diving right off the bow! It was like he wanted to
make sure everyone on the boat saw him! Show off!
From there we searched in a different area and found Valley,
her calf and Gunslinger again! Valley’s calf breached a few times before
settling down.
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| Valley's calf |
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| Valley's calf |
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| Valley and calf diving |
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| Valley and calf diving |
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| Gunslinger diving |
Another humpback was seen in the distance so we
investigated. This turned out to be Grommet, a whale who was reported to have
been seen by other whale-watching boats about 20km south of its current
location. Whales certainly move around a lot!! On our way home, we saw another blow. This was Satula!! We
haven’t seen him in a week or so and were happy to have him back in the
neighborhood! A minke whale was spotted scooting around the area, and then it
was time to go home.
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| Satula |
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| Satula diving |
Thursday morning, we saw a blow in the distance that was
likely a fin whale, but we never got eyes on it. Then we found the humpback
whale named Mogul. Just like yesterday, he surfaced close to the boat, but didn’t
do the full lap this time!
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| Mogul, coming up close to the boat |
Pinball and her calf were also in the area, as were many
Atlantic white-sided dolphins darting all around the area! Satula and Clamp were
spotted, with Clamp doing her signature high fluke/tail flick maneuverer!
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| Clamp diving a little too close to a tuna fishing boat (even though the tuna season is closed right now (?)) |
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| Clamp's fancy signature move- a high fluke with a tail flick when diving! |
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Pinball's calf
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| Pinball diving |
We moved off the hot spot to look at a large pod of Atlantic
white-sided dolphins and hung out with them for a bit.
As we came back to the
area where the humpbacks were seen, we found another whale named Othello, and
then we saw Valley and her calf breaching and tail-lobbing back in the area of
the large dolphin pod! Craziness!
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| Valley tail-lobbing |
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| Valley's calf |
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| Flipper-slapping |
Whales
were all around us, and it was a bit difficult for our team to keep track of
which whale was nearby! Not a bad problem to have!
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| Satula showing up again at the end! |
Thursday afternoon, we passed by a couple groups of harbor
porpoises before we found a couple of humpback whales a bit north of where we
were in the morning. These two, ID’ed as Gunslinger and Patches, were taking
long dives and spending little time at the surface.
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| Patches |
We moved over to where we saw whales on our trip and
found Clamp, Satula, Pinball and her calf, and then Valley and her calf in the
distance.
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| Clamp |
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| Pinball |
Clamp and Satula definitely stole the show! Satula breached
five times, coming straight up out of the water and slamming his chin on the
water!
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| Satula |
Then Clamp started to kick-feed (lobtail-feed) where she would slap her flukes on the surface to create a disturbance and then surface vertically under the area to engulf her prey! Amazing!
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| Clamp's signature high fluke tail flick! |
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| Clamp feeding |
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| Clamp lob-tail feeding |
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| Clamp feeding |
Both trips were full of activity and incredible memories!
Friday, the weather was uncooperative for whale watching, with
lots of wind and rain in the forecast, but we will try again on Saturday
afternoon.
