Thursday afternoon began with what felt like a wild goose chase while we chased down leads before making our way down towards the southernmost regions of Jeffrey's Ledge. Once we arrived, we started our whale watching with a lone humpback doing a little bit of traveling before pressing on further to see what else we could find.
Humpback Whale
After making our way a bit further south we were greeted by what seemed like countless blows from distant whales in the area, but one of them seemed just a bit different from all the rest. Upon further inspection, we discovered our suspicions were validated as we approached a BLUE WHALE! This was the same individual we encountered on Tuesday afternoon's whale watch, except this time it was 15 miles away from where we first sighted it. We were very fortunate to spend a good amount of time with this leviathan, not spending too much time underneath the surface, before we ultimately did a bit more searching.
Blue Whale!
We didn't have to move far before coming across a pair of humpback whales. These whales leaving behind some evidence of feeding before going down on deeper dives. That red coloration telling us all we need to know as to why the blue whale had moved into the area (There's a boatload of krill around here!).
A lil' bit of whale poop
Our humpbacks were individually identified as Springboard, Elephant, and Fleck! As we were spending time with our pair of humpbacks, we were completely surrounded by fin whales that were darting around the general area. What a way to end our Fourth of July trips!
Friday morning was our first real morning of the season being blanketed in fog. Not the most ideal for spotting marine life at the surface, but we weren't going to let that stop us! After a few hours of searching, we were given a report from our friends to the south that they had a pair of whales, so we made our way over. Once there, we had a small clearing in the fog where we were able to watch a pair of humpback whales circling around the area.
Humpback whale
After spending some time with those two whales, we noticed a third humpback in the area and went over to investigate. In doing so, we were able to encounter a fin whale passing through the area as well!
Humpback whale diving
Fin whale diving
The fog sure doesn't make our job easy, but we won't turn our backs to adversity, and besides, it looked as though things were beginning to clear up for our afternoon trip.
Friday afternoon started with us doing some searching a bit further east than we had our whales on the morning trip. It didn't take long for us to come across our first whale of the trip, a surface feeding humpback whale! This whale spending a decent amount of time surfacing with its mouth full of saltwater as it was busy chasing down food beneath the surface.
Humpback whale filtering saltwater
While watching the humpback, we noticed a number of blows all around the boat, most of which turned into fin whales. EIGHT to be exact. Some of those fin whales traveling in pairs, and one of them actually revealing themselves to be a mother/calf pair! Definitely not a common sighting for us on our whale watches.
Fin whale pair
Partial fluke from fin whale calf
Humpback diving
After spending time with many of the fin whales, we were able to cap off our trip by visiting two different humpbacks in the region. Of the three humpbacks, we were able to identify two of the individuals as New Jersey and Fleck. Great sightings and a nice break from the morning fog!
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