11 am Whale Watch Trip - Krill and Val
We had a bumpy ride offshore with SW winds increasing to 15- 20 knots. As we crossed over Stellwagen Bank, we saw a big splash just a mile further off our bow. We slowed to check out this splash, but no whales surfaced before we had to continue our journey offshore. There are other marine animals that breach or jump out of the water. These include bluefin tuna, basking sharks and ocean sunfish. I would like to think that the breacher was a basking shark. But we will never know!
We continued our journey to the east and found Nile feeding deep. At one point, Nile surfaced just off the left side of the boat (port side) which surprised our passengers onboard. We watched Nile take a fluke-out dive and we were never able to pick her up again. Not unusual to lose a large whale especially when they are feeding deep for long periods of time. And the rough seas didn't help. The images above are Nile fluking out right next to the boat. Even though Nile did not pick-up her tail very high as she dove, you can still see the black vertical line on the left fluke that is used to identify this individual. This line forks at the bottom as it looks like the Nile river. Always nice to name a whale for a unique mark or feature on the body. That way, when you see the mark, it jogs your memory and you can remember the whale's name.
So we moved back onto the bank as we headed east. On the bank, we found a small cluster of humpack whales that were also feeding deep. These individuals were feeding alone or in pairs and all were saying beneath the surface for over 8 minutes. When they surfaced, their blows were very loud and very powerful, a sign that they are feeding deep in the water column.
We were able to get some great looks at these animals and identified one individual named Fern. Fern was feeding with a second humpback, but we never identified this individual for it didn't fluke out. All in all a great day offshore with fabulous passengers and great whales.
