October 9, 2024

 October 9, 2024

Today was filled with ups and downs, quite literally. We left the harbor with a stiff, westerly wind at our stern, not at all what the marine weather forecasts had predicted. The ride out was calm and warm.

But then, we changed course a bit to follow a distant blow. The wind pushed some spray onto the boat as we rocked a bit in the sea and swell, but soon, we slowed to search for the whale. A fin whale popped up in the area but wasn't spending much time at the surface. We continued on to search for a second blow in the area, but that whale was also playing (and winning) a game of Hide and Seek. The wind and seas were picking up, and we knew we didn't want to venture further offshore, so we decided to make our way back to the harbor. 

We were preparing to accept a "skunk," a trip with no whale sightings. Skunks don't happen often, but with today's misled forecast, we really didn't think we would find a whale. 

Thankfully, Mother Nature decided to grant us a pass. With our tail between our legs, we headed for home, riding above most of the waves. Then, out of nowhere, we saw a bunch of small dorsal fins surrounding us. Dolphins! At first, we saw Atlantic white-sided dolphins. But within seconds, Common dolphins were in the group as well! A mixed pod!! Very cool and pretty rare! Common dolphins are not actually common in our area, so seeing them with the AWS dolphins was very unexpected and even rarer! 

Common dolphin

Atlantic white-sided dolphin

Hooray! But then, we saw a blow in the same area. A young humpback whale was here, too!! We saw this whale lift its tail a few times. It was new to all of us on the crew, and we couldn't find it in our onboard catalog. Later, back on land, we found this whale, which was one that had yet to be named but had been seen in the Gulf of Maine before. Hopefully, it will be given a name soon. 

What a surprising, unexpected day all around! The ocean always keeps us on our toes!