August 14-15, 2025

 Thursday morning we began our sightings with with quite a few brief looks at some distant whales. As we made our way out towards the ledge, we caught glimpses of a fin whale, minke whale, and a humpback, who turned out to be Satula.

Distant fin whale

Satula diving

We were unable to get much closer to any of these whales as they were doing a good job of covering great distances between their surfacings, so we chose to press on. After doing some more searching, we were able to spot some distant splashing, which revealed itself to be a decent sized pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins, about 100 or so!

White-sided dolphins

After getting some excellent looks at those toothed whales, we pressed on just a bit further before getting to spend some time with a pair of humpback whales, Pitcher and Valley.

Humpback whales resting at surface

These two whales were continuing our very impressive streak of coming across sleeping whales at the surface this year.

Thursday afternoon, we made our way back out to where we had found success in the morning, and as luck would have it, our trip started with a pod of around 60 white-sided dolphins!

White-sided dolphins

Our sightings of these dolphins have definitely started to become more consistent as our season has progressed, so always a fun sighting to have on board.

Humpback whale diving

After leaving our dolphins behind, we came across another sleepy humpback whale for the day, Patches. This whale spent a lot of time sleeping near the surface, so as to not disturb it, we continued on with our day. This eventually led us to some very active humpback whales, Valley and Ravine! 

Humpback flipper slapping

Valley tail lobbing

Valley repeatedly slapped her flippers against the surface before eventually slapping her tail at the surface as well. All the while, Ravine was displaying some surface feeding just nearby. An amazing way for us to cap off our trip!

Both the morning and afternoon trips were cancelled due to unfavorable sea conditions, but Saturday morning is looking to be gorgeous!

August 13, 2025

Wednesday morning started out with calm seas and a lovely ride out towards Jeffreys Ledge. As we approached the area where we have been seeing whales recently, the wind began to pick up and the fishing boats let us know that the whales have been few and far between in the area today. So we made a slight change in course and before long, we saw a whale in the distance! This whale was doing her signature feeding move- two tail flicks to create a disturbance on the surface, and then about 20 seconds later, she would charge up through the disturbed water with her mouth wide open to catch the fish! This was Clamp!

Soon, we saw other blows in the area. Ravine was blowing bubble clouds to catch her fish, but surfacing outside of them.

Sedge also showed up to the party.

With the wind and seas picking up, and a fog bank not far away, we decided to head for home. Due to the deteriorating weather conditions, we ended up cance
ing our afternoon trip. Better luck tomorrow!

August 11-12, 2025

It's been a bit of "rinse and repeat" for our trips recently, in the best way possible! There have been plenty of whales to look at. On Monday morning, we spent time with four humpback whales, including all three Blue Ocean Society adoptable whales! 

Humpback whales (above and below)

Additionally, we briefly saw a couple of fin whales and minke whales. Individual humpback whales included Owl, Sigma, Pinball, and Satula. 

Satula in such calm seas!

Fin whale

On Monday afternoon, we saw seven humpback whales and two fin whales. The humpback whales were moving in every direction. One moment here, one moment there, and each time we tried to move away from Satula, lo and behold, it would surface nearby! 

Satula

Other whales included Valley, Pinball, Spoon, Chromosome, and Sedge. Our fin whale pair was sneaky. They appeared nearby and disappeared just as quickly, but we got great looks as they swam past the boat. With such calm winds all day, it was a beautiful day watching whales.

Diving humpback whale

Fin whale

Pair of humpback whales

On Tuesday morning, we saw three minke whales, a pair of fin whales, three humpback whales, and an ocean sunfish. There was no shortage of marine life to look at! 

Minke whale

Diving humpback whale

Incoming ocean sunfish

The calm winds added an extra level of stunning scenery. Not a bad way to start the day. Known humpback whales included Sedge and Satula. 

Fin whale surfacing

Humpback whale

We started the trip on Tuesday afternoon with a nursery pod of approximately 40 Atlantic white-sided dolphins. 

Atlantic white-sided dolphins (above and below)

With multiple calves in this pod, this group was so much fun to watch! We then attempted to watch a few different fin whales, but these whales were doing a REALLY good job holding their breaths. Further offshore we spent time with a minke whale and four humpback whales - Clamp, Sigma, Chromosome, and Spoon. Another splendid couple of days in the Jeffreys Ledge region of the Gulf of Maine!

Minke whale

Humpback whale

Humpback whale pair

August 9-10, 2025

On Saturday morning, we spent time watching four different humpback whales. We started with Ravine before watching Patches and ended the trip with a pair, Valley and Sigma. There have certainly been whales around, and we are so fortunate to have them still in our area.

 On Saturday afternoon, we briefly saw three fin whales, along with four humpback whales. 

Fin whale

While more spouts were out in the distance, we got fun looks at our baleen whales nearby, including Clamp, Valley, Owl, and Sigma.

Clamp kick-feeding

Clamp filtering

Diving humpback whale

Numerous sightings continued on Sunday. On our morning trip, we spent time with seven different humpback whales! Individuals included Pinball, Satula, Clamp, Pitcher, Patches, Spoon, and Chromosome. 

Humpback whale

Can you even imagine how much food is out there, knowing so many whales have been around recently??? Wow. 

On our afternoon trip, the sightings continued as we spent time with humpback whales Clamp, Valley, Owl, Chromosome, and Spoon. 

We saw some breaches, lobtailing, and flipper-slapping from a few of these whales. What a sight and soooooo impressive. 

Chromosome lobtailing

At one point, a minke whale popped up nearby, but the icing on the cake for sightings was likely our nursery pod of Atlantic white-sided dolphins. These speedy toothed whales were zipping through the water, showcasing their incredible maneuverability and adorable selves. 😍

Atlantic white-sided dolphins on the move

Dolphin calf = 💖

August 7-8, 2025

 Thursday morning began with glassy seas and a bit of a swell. We made our way out towards Jeffreys Ledge and began our trip with a pod of around 25 Atlantic White-sided dolphins!

White-sided dolphins

We hung out with this very mellow group of Lags (Lag being an abbreviation of their scientific name) for a good while before we pressed on further out towards a distant whale that we had been keeping tabs on. This turned out to be Pinball the humpback whale.

Pinball diving

After spending time with Pinball, we pressed further offshore towards another whale that we had seen, but stopping short to get looks at a basking shark that was passing by.

Basking shark at surface

Continuing along, we were able to spend some time with Spoon the humpback whale, as well as getting brief looks at a fin whale as it passed through the area.

Spoon diving

As we made our way back towards home, we were able to spend a bit of time with a whale that I wasn't able to identify at the time, but was later able to identify as a whale known as Sigma. Definitely an amazing way to start our sightings for the day!

Thursday afternoon, we started our sightings with the exact whale we ended with during our morning trip, Sigma.

Sigma, the humpback whale

We spent a good amount of time with this whale as it switched its behavior from sleeping to feeding, before moving along to see who else was spending some time in the area. We got brief looks at a minke whale as we moved into an area with three different humpback whales. In a stroke of wild coincidence, the three humpback whales that were in this area, were all of our adoptable whales through the Blue Ocean Society; Pinball, Owl, and Satula.

Owl diving in the distance

Definitely a surprise for us seeing Owl this afternoon, as the last time she was seen was less than two weeks ago up in Bar Harbor, Maine! 

Satula diving

We were able to get some amazing last looks at Satula as he surface near the boat several times before we started our journey back towards Rye Harbor.

Friday morning began with a single humpback whale, Ravine, before our sightings really began to ramp up.

Ravine diving

After leaving Ravine, we were able to get looks at two more humpback whales swimming nearby, Clamp and Pitcher. Just a short distance away we could see more activity so we began to investigate. After moving into this area and idling at the surface, we had a distant fin whale and minke whale on our left, as well as a humpback whale out to our right. In addition to this, out in front of us there was some distant splashing which turned out to be a pod of around 30 Atlantic white-sided dolphins. These dolphins were spending time near another humpback whale, Patches, as he was resting near the surface. These dolphins moved on from Patches and turned their attention towards another animal near the surface. We watched as they approached a basking shark, seemingly nipping at its tail fin, spooking it for a minute before it returned back up to the surface.

Basking shark

White-sided dolphins

After continuing along, we returned to a humpback whale we had quick looks at earlier, a whale named Sigma, before pressing further and seeing another humpback, Valley. By this time we really needed to make our way back towards Rye. On our journey in, we saw a distant bubble cloud at the surface before seeing a humpback lunge up through it, so we traveled over to get some quick looks.

Patches lunge feeding

We got incredible looks as this whale came up to the surface with its mouth wide open capturing small schooling fish as we then continued back towards home.

Friday afternoon saw a bit of a breeze up in sea conditions, but by no means did that mean there were going to be fewer whales. One of the few ways that I have found to describe trips like this is to say we are spending time in "whale soup". Once we made our way offshore, It was hard to stare off into the distance and not see a whale at the surface. There were spouts rising up every which way, so we tried our best to document as many as the individuals as possible spending time in this area. We began our trip with a humpback right off of either side of the boat, Valley and Patches.

Valley diving

Patches surface feeding

After leaving our first two whales, we were also able to get looks at several more humpbacks, including; Clamp, Chromosome, Ravine, Sigma, and Spoon. All the while, we got quick looks at four distant fin whales traveling through the area. After getting a sense of who was spending time in the area, we were able to get excellent looks at Clamp as she was displaying a behavior known as "kick-feeding" near the surface.

Clamp feeding at surface

After leaving Clamp, we spent a bit more time with Patches before we had to turn for home. On the return trip, we had a lot of splashing near the surface that was rapidly moving in our direction. This turned out to be a pod of around 25 Atlantic white-sided dolphins. 

White-sided dolphins (tiny calf!)

There were several small calves in this pod, giving us an extra special way to wrap up our sightings!