August 9-10, 2023

 August 9-10, 2023

Wednesday morning, the NW wind was pretty stiff, which means windy. And windy can mean bumpy. But our travel to Jeffreys Ledge was smooth as the wind and waves were mostly on our backs. Fair wind and a following sea, as the sailor say. With white caps surrounding us, we miraculously ran into a pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins! We stayed with them for a bit before continuing our search. We found Satula, Pinball, and her calf in one area, and then not far away, we found another mom/calf pair- Shuffleboard! An ocean sunfish rounded out the trip on our way home!

 

Wednesday afternoon, we didn’t see any dolphins, but we did see a nice group of harbor porpoises! Then Clamp was seen traveling NNE. We stayed with her for a few minutes and then continued on. We saw Pinball and her calf again, with a minke whale in the area. Heading a little further east, Valley and her calf were hanging out! Another humpback was about a mile south of us, but it was time to head home. As we were cruising, we in the pilot house heard a huge commotion coming from the upper deck. What just happened??? A humpback whale just breached out of nowhere! And then a second breach! And another! Pinball and her calf had moved from where we had left them earlier in the trip and were now jumping around all over! Then Pinball started to flipper-slap, and the calf mimicked her! Perhaps she was teaching her kid some cool behaviors in communication. More breaching, tail lobbing, flipper slapping…and finally they calmed down and we really had to go. What a surprise though!

 

Thursday morning was calm and a little cool. It is starting to feel like fall already! We saw some lovely harbor porpoises near the harbor and then a pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins that was trucking NW. Satula was spotted doing what he is so well known for- pooping! Then a quick look at an ocean sunfish and minke before we found Pinball and her calf again. No breaching on this trip from this pair, but instead the calf wandered away from Pinball for a bit and then swam quickly back to her! This happened a couple of times! Pinball’s calf has been quite the wanderer this summer, but always ends up back with mom.

Despite a potential forecast of rain, it was a surprisingly calm, dry afternoon out on the water. As we headed offshore, we spotted a couple pods of harbor porpoises, and even a couple minke whales.   Knowing there were likely other whales further away, we continued on and spotted a humpback whale – Satula!  We got great looks at Satula near the boat as he surfaced several times.  We then saw a pair of blows. This turned out to be Pinball and her calf, always a fun sighting!  They seemed very relaxed, hanging out at the surface and diving together. At one point, another whale joined them briefly. We think this was Diablo. Diablo did some flipper slapping at one point -that’s aways a fun behavior to watch.  There was also another humpback whale (Ebony) nearby. After spending lots of quality time with the humpbacks, we headed for home, but found a pod of 20-30 Atlantic white-sided dolphins along the way. The dolphins weren’t super interactive with the boat, but did cruise near our bow several times, affording everyone great looks at these graceful toothed whales.