August 2-4, 2023
Wednesday morning, we passed some harbor porpoises before
finding several humpback whales. Jawa was seen blowing clouds of bubbles to
concentrate his prey. Then Pinball and her calf were seen! Pinball was exhibiting
what all animals do….poop! Then we saw
Valley and her calf. While Valley was spending time underwater, her calf was
practicing its fish-catching skills by blowing small clouds of bubbles and
coming up in them, similar to how some humpback feed. A fin whale was seen in
the distance, and we passed a minke whale, two ocean sunfish, a blue shark on our way home, and several small groups of harbor porpoises.
Wednesday afternoon, we found more humpback whales, including
Satula and Pinball and her calf! Whales were all over and moving around quite a
bit. Pinball and her calf surfaced close to the boat a couple of times! Jawa
and Dyad also made appearances. As we left
the area, we found a big pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins with several
calves! Such an added bonus!
We passed by a minke whale on Thursday morning before finding
a small pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins. Although a smallish pod of about
25 animals, we got great looks as they approached the boat and passed under the
bow! Further along, we found a pair of
humpback whales, Valley and her calf. At first, they were logging (resting), and
then they both tail-breached! Waiting for them to resurface, we saw an
ocean sunfish near the boat! We spent some time with this mellow fish, giving
both sides of the boat a nice look. Some other boats came in to check out the
activity, so we continued on to find other whales. Satula was spotted briefly,
and then Mogul passed by. We saw another pair of spouts in the distance and
found Pinball and her calf! Soon upon arriving, Pinball’s calf breached! And
then Pinball herself breached with the calf quickly following suit! A double
breach! The calf continued its antics- breaching, tail and flipper slapping-
for quite some time! Such a great morning with the whales!
Thursday afternoon was a little bumpy, but an amazing day on
the water nonetheless. Our first sightings were of Valley and her 2023
calf, who were hanging out with Cacophony. These 3 spent a lot of time at the
surface, and the calf would occasionally get active. Its behaviors include flipper
slapping and chin breaching!
While watching these 3, we were thrilled to see
breaches in the distance. Before we knew it, whales were breaching in multiple
directions! This was very cool but also very unpredictable. Instead of
capturing images, we could only just watch, and that was ok. Once we left
the trio, we spotted several other whales, all of whom had been in the area all
along. These included Mogul and Ebony, Gondolier and Jawa, and a mystery
whale that we couldn’t get an image of. There was nearly constant activity
today, which can be a rarity!
We have decided to stay on land on Friday due to the forecasted inclement weather conditions. We'll try again on Saturday!
