August 2-4, 2023

 August 2-4, 2023

Wednesday morning, we passed some harbor porpoises before finding several humpback whales. Jawa was seen blowing clouds of bubbles to concentrate his prey. Then Pinball and her calf were seen! Pinball was exhibiting what all animals do….poop!  Then we saw Valley and her calf. While Valley was spending time underwater, her calf was practicing its fish-catching skills by blowing small clouds of bubbles and coming up in them, similar to how some humpback feed. A fin whale was seen in the distance, and we passed a minke whale, two ocean sunfish, a blue shark on our way home, and several small groups of harbor porpoises.

 

Wednesday afternoon, we found more humpback whales, including Satula and Pinball and her calf! Whales were all over and moving around quite a bit. Pinball and her calf surfaced close to the boat a couple of times! Jawa and Dyad also made appearances.  As we left the area, we found a big pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins with several calves! Such an added bonus!

We passed by a minke whale on Thursday morning before finding a small pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins. Although a smallish pod of about 25 animals, we got great looks as they approached the boat and passed under the bow!  Further along, we found a pair of humpback whales, Valley and her calf. At first, they were logging (resting), and then they both tail-breached! Waiting for them to resurface, we saw an ocean sunfish near the boat! We spent some time with this mellow fish, giving both sides of the boat a nice look. Some other boats came in to check out the activity, so we continued on to find other whales. Satula was spotted briefly, and then Mogul passed by. We saw another pair of spouts in the distance and found Pinball and her calf! Soon upon arriving, Pinball’s calf breached! And then Pinball herself breached with the calf quickly following suit! A double breach! The calf continued its antics- breaching, tail and flipper slapping- for quite some time! Such a great morning with the whales!

 

Thursday afternoon was a little bumpy, but an amazing day on the water nonetheless.  Our first sightings were of Valley and her 2023 calf, who were hanging out with Cacophony. These 3 spent a lot of time at the surface, and the calf would occasionally get active. Its behaviors include flipper slapping and chin breaching!

While watching these 3, we were thrilled to see breaches in the distance. Before we knew it, whales were breaching in multiple directions!  This was very cool but also very unpredictable. Instead of capturing images, we could only just watch, and that was ok.  Once we left the trio, we spotted several other whales, all of whom had been in the area all along.  These included Mogul and Ebony, Gondolier and Jawa, and a mystery whale that we couldn’t get an image of. There was nearly constant activity today, which can be a rarity!

We have decided to stay on land on Friday due to the forecasted inclement weather conditions. We'll try again on Saturday!