What a breath of fresh air it is to finally be back on the water! After a slew of cancellations due to poor weather and some mechanical difficulties, we were finally able to set back out offshore in search of our marine mammal friends, and they sure didn't disappoint. Our day began with time well spent with a very familiar humpback for us, Satula! He gave us some indications of feeding taking place below the surface as he continued to leave behind bubble clouds each time he returned to the surface.
Satula diving
After leaving Satula, we encountered several fish of the cartilaginous variety, sharks! Three blue sharks and one basking shark to be more precise. Such beautiful surface conditions allowed us excellent looks at these sharks just beneath the surface.
Blue shark
Basking shark
Just a bit more searching revealed a lot more life! Our next stop was with a pair of humpback whales traveling side by side, with another two humpbacks surfacing nearby, but not associated. While watching these whales, we saw the distant blows of another trio of humpbacks, as well as a fin whale that was passing on through.
Humpback diving
Humpback trio
We were able to spend a bit of time with all of the whales in the area before we had to make our turn for home. Once we did, we noticed to distant splashing and moved to investigate. That splashing turned out to be a very, very spread out pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins, with at least a hundred individuals in that pod (multiple pods? Idk they were everywhere¯\_(ツ)_/¯). This was just the day we needed to jump back into action as we approach our last few weeks of our 2024 whale watching season!
No comments:
Post a Comment