July 22-23, 2023

Who knew we could have a nice weather day! This season has been full of fog so it was a nice change of pace to see a clear horizon and the sun shining through this weekend. On Saturday morning we checked out nine humpback whales. Many of them were crossing paths, moving from one direction to another.

Diving humpback whale

Pair of humpback whales

Individuals included Pinball and her 2023 calf, Clamp, Jawa, Satula, Spoon, Chromosome, and Valley and her 2023 calf.

Valley and her calf

On our Saturday afternoon camp trip, we were fortunate to spend time with Valley and her calf.

Valley and her calf

Valley

Valley's calf poking its head slightly out of the water

We even came across an ocean sunfish, which are always fun fish to show students!

Ocean sunfish

Sunday was a great start to the day. Why? Because we saw an awesome look at a shark! After further investigation into our sighting, it was determined this shark was a Mako shark. Sharks frequent our waters and while most of our sightings are of blue sharks or basking sharks, other species are more rare in their presence.

Mako shark (above and below)

Further offshore we saw a pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins and four humpback whales.

Atlantic white-sided dolphins

Spoon the humpback whale logging

Valley's calf on its side

On our afternoon trip, we saw six humpback whales. We got the chance to see Jawa, Valley and her 2023 calf, Satula and Pinball and her 2023 calf.

Humpback whale

Valley and her calf fluking

The ocean was beautiful and the marine life stunning this weekend. We are looking forward to what the coming week has is store for us!

July 20-21, 2023

Thursday:

What a great day to be on the water!  We departed with super calm seas and a light breeze and perfect whale watching conditions.  Our first sighting was a pod of about 40 Atlantic white-sided dolphins. This pod included several calves swimming next to their moms – such a fun sight!  After watching the dolphins for a bit, we headed further offshore and headed toward a blow. We were waylaid by a humpback whale who lazily raised its flipper in the air. We went over to check it out, and it turned out to be Spoon! She was in a sleepy mood, spending most of her time at the surface, appearing to nap.  We didn’t want to disturb her, so we headed further out and saw several more humpback whales. The whales were charging around and not spending a lot of time at the surface, but we managed to identify Satula, Jawa, Gondolier and possibly Chromosome.  We finished up by spending some time with Pinball and her calf.

 

The afternoon trip was similar, with different whale configurations. We started with a pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins. These spent a little more time near the boat than the morning’s pod, and we got to see several dramatic leaps!  We then moved out to where we had humpbacks in the morning, and came upon a whale that we got a quick look at, but haven’t yet identified.  Spoon was still in the area and had met up with Chromosome, and we watched them for a bit.  We also spotted Satula again, Clamp and got some amazing looks at Pinball and her calf at the end.  What a day!

Friday:

We headed out towards the southern end of Jeffreys and encountered varying fog as we got closer.  On the trip, we had a small and elusive group of harbor porpoises before we ended up with a foraging finback whale. We got a couple of quick looks at the finback before we moved on to investigate other blows.  We spent time with several humpbacks, including Gondolier, Satula,  Pinball, and her calf.  Both Pinball and her calf breached for us and provided some amazing looks.  On the way back in we got some nice looks at the always bizarre Ocean Sunfish.

 

Satula

Pinball and calf

For the afternoon, we headed back to the same area for the afternoon trip.  6-7 miles west of our destination, we encountered the humpback whale Nike who was actively feeding at the surface.  Nike gave us multiple lunge feeding looks at the surface.  Totally hard to predict but awesome to witness.  Nike would lunge almost vertically through the surface, and we could see the water filling his ventral grooves.  Eventually, we continued East, where we had several dispersed blows.  While waiting for humpbacks to surface, we had a couple more glimpses of harbor porpoises. We got looks at Satula, Pinball and her calf, and an additional unknown humpback. As we left the area to return to Rye, we could see lots of white water and an active whale in the distance.

July 17-19, 2023

Monday morning was a humbling morning. Marine life was plentiful - our first ocean sunfish of the season(!), numerous humpback whales, a grey seal and even a pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins.

First sunfish of the season!

Grey seal

Atlantic white-sided dolphin

However, the trip provided its own spin on the reality of whales... entanglements. One of our whales was entangled. Anytime an entangled whale is sighted our mindsets and reactions are shifted into high gear. It's a flurry of activity with LOTS of photos being taken, phone calls being made, data recorded being fine-tuned, and radio calls being made to other vessels, to mention a few "behind the scenes" activities. It's organized chaos all the while a wild animal could be dealing with a potentially lethal event. The entire whale-watching community is always working together to keep these wild animals as safe as possible. So thank you to our passengers on both our trips Monday for your patience, understanding, and concern. To the captain, naturalist, and crew on the Hurricane II who stood by and made numerous phone calls about the sighting. And of course to the responders, who beat feet up from Provincetown, MA (on the water) to assist this whale in distress, the Marine Animal Entanglement Response team. These brave and selfless crew were able to relocate the whale, assess the entanglement, track its movements and attempt to remove some of the gear. The next sighting of this whale will be extremely important to determine if any gear still remains on the whale.

On our afternoon trip, we kept a keen eye out for the entangled whale but did not find it. Instead, we came across five humpback whales - Patches, Spoon, Chromosome, Pinball and her 2023 calf.

Patches

Pinball and her calf

Pair of humpback whales

A minke whale even surfaced briefly. Monday may have been a mentally exhausting day, but it's what all of us who work in this industry must anticipate, and will do everything possible to help these creatures.

On Tuesday morning, Mother Nature had her own plans for us. The fog rolled in where we have been seeing whales on Jeffreys Ledge. We searched all over the area, but unfortunately, we could not find any whales. It wasn't until we were on our way home we came across a minke whale.

Minke whale

Tuesday afternoon, our first sighting was a pod of ~75 Atlantic white-sided dolphins. Dolphins aren't a regular sighting for us so it was a pleasant surprise.

Atlantic white-sided dolphins

Back out on Jeffreys Ledge (where we searched and searched that morning), visibility had much improved and we spent time with six humpback whales including Pinball and her calf, Pitcher and Valley and her calf.

On Wednesday morning, there was quite a variety of marine life. The trip began with Finke the minke whale. We've been seeing this whale since 2011!

Finke!

We were then lucky to come across a nursery pod of ~40 Atlantic white-sided dolphins.

Baby dolphins (above and below)!!!

Before getting to Jeffreys Ledge we came across a humpback whale. It was Nike and this whale was busy eating. Lots of eating!

Nike lunge-feeding (above and below)

The trip rounded out with a quick look at an ocean sunfish.

Ocean sunfish poking out

On Wednesday afternoon, we were able to spend time with Nike once again. Still, this whale was eating with lots of lunge-feeding behavior. While this whale was sporadically surfacing in the area, when it did surface, it certainly was impressive!

July 15-16, 2023

We were privy to some incredible displays on both our trips on Saturday. A handful of our recent humpback whale sightings have been very active. While whales (all whales) can breach, it doesn't mean they do it often. And yet, in recent weeks, we have been so fortunate to witness this spectacular behavior from numerous individuals. Grateful and humbled to the core. During our morning trip, we checked out six humpback whales including Pitcher, Patches, Pinball, her 2023 calf, and Mogul. However, our first whale, not-yet-identified, was the show-stopper. This whale breached numerous times with plenty of flipper-slapping in between.

The start of our morning humpback whale aerial activity

Breach!

Diving humpback whale

On our afternoon trip, we spent time watching humpback whales Gondolier, Patches, Chromosome, Spoon and Jawa. These sightings included a few whales we haven't seen in a bit and even newcomers for the season.

Humpback whale

This time, Jawa was the whale that became active - breaching and flipper-slapping. Stunning displays from wild animals are always an incredible moment.

Afternoon breach!

Another trip, another round of humpback whales flipper-slapping

Sunday, the weather kept us on land. Hoping this coming week will provide nice weather, whales to be seen and memories to be made!