September 27-29, 2023

September 27, 2023

Today, we found seven humpback whales and a small group of harbor porpoises! We started by finding a pair of humpbacks, Fan and Sword. They were taking short dives and not moving too far.

 

We heard of another pair of humpbacks nearby, so we relocated them and watched as they slowly swam to the NE at about 3 knots, barely fluking, at least until we left! Looking back, we saw the pair fluke up, but we were already on our way. Victim and Partition!

 

We watched Fan and Sword again; this time Fan was logging (sleeping) while Sword would surface intermittently.

On our way home, we spotted a blow in the distance, a little off our trackline. As we turned in that direction, we saw the whale flipper slapping and even breached! When we got closer, we realized there were actually three whales there! Satula was in the area, but it was Clamp that was doing the active behaviors. Of course, once we got close, she settled down, but at one point, she turned to seemingly check us out!

And then, on the way home, we saw some harbor porpoises in the distance. Great fall day on the ocean!

September 29, 2023

Today was overcast, but we only had a brief sprinkle of rain during the trip. We found Victim first with Partition nearby. Victim was taking short dives, and Partition was less predictable. The pair got together for a bit- glad to see these two still hanging out!

Another boat came in to check out the two humpbacks, so we took that opportunity to scout for other whales in the area. We came up short-handed so we went back to see Victim and Partition, who now were separated again. 

As we waited for Victim to resurface, we saw a minke whale nearby and got some great looks at this "little" whale. 

Then, Victim surprised us by surfacing really close to us! Amazing!

We were getting short on time, so we moved on to try to relocate Partition. We found her, but she was taking long dives and after waiting for over 15 minutes, we had to head for home.