Whale Watching Trip June 18, 2010

9 am Whale Watch - Joanne

We left Plymouth Harbor on Friday, June 18 for the 9 AM whale watch with clear skies, light winds, and calm seas. We traveled to the SW corner of Stellwagen Bank where we found several humpback whales.

We started with a humpback named Grackle who was doing some bubble cloud feeding right in the middle of the tuna fishing fleet. Grackle was blowing a ring of bubbles and then surfacing through the center, catching prey.

We then traveled north to a group of whales which included Barb,Freefall and Soot. These three whales were traveling in association with one another. Nearby, we had several minke whales, the smallest of the baleen whales we see on Stellwagen Bank.

Our final sighting was of a mature female named Nile. She was traveling alone to the southwest. Nile was entangled in fishing gear several years ago, as was her brother, Putter. Nile has produced atleast 3 calves and is a top 50 humpback of Stellwagen Bank with her high sighting frequency. It was a beautiful day offshore!

Species seen, included: humpbacks and minkes

Humpbacks identified, included: Grackle, Barb, Freefall, Nile, Soot

9 am Whale Watch Trip - Leah

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday it was cloudy and foggy and today it was clear and sunny. Don't we all love New England weather? This mornings trip was very nice, we had flat calm seas, a little haze but it was beautiful out on the water today. I was quite eager to be in whale search mode today, because it's always an adventure out there.

We started out trip with a rather large group of tuna in the water and then we found our first whale which was a finback. It didn't stay with us to long it came to the surface twice but then went on a deep dive and moved off further away in the distance. After we saw the finback we found a humpback named Nile and another individual with her. And we spent the remainder of our trip with this small group of humpback whales.

Nile was always directly in front of the boat we had the other whale that was swimming with her off our starboard or right side a little off in the distance and then we picked up another whale that joined our group. The other two were a little spotty when surfacing which made it hard to get good photos for identification but we did at least have a few whales to see out on the bank today.

Whale Watching Trip June 17, 2010

9 am Whale Watch Trip - Krill

As we headed offshore to the waters of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, visibility offshore was reduced to less than a mile. Reduced visibility makes it difficult, but not impossible, to locate whales since we only use our eyes and binoculars to visually pick-up animals some distance from the vessel. Yes, we do have radar and sonar on all our boats, but neither instrument is helpful in finding a whale.

When working offshore in these types of difficult situations, we also talk to other whale watching boats in our company and other companies. By sharing sighting information, we can learn very quickly where the whales have moved over the course of the night or over the course of the day. And today, all the captains from the different whale watch companies from the South Shores were talking with one another on their VHF radios.

Capt. Todd aboard the Portuguese Princess was the first captain that morning to locate a pair of humpback whales. This isn't the first time that Capt. Todd has alerted us to the presence of whales and we want to thank him very much for his efforts. This pair turned out to be Reaper and calf. We have been seeing a great deal of this pair and it was wonderful to have a chance to observe them on this foggy day.

Mother and calf were moving slowly and in no great rush to get anywhere. The calf was spending a lot of time on the surface and seemed to be resting now and again. Mom may have been resting beneath the surface, but that was difficult if not impossible to confirm.

Mom and calf fluked-out of the water on occasion showing off their fabulous ventral tail patterns that we use to identify individuals. Our passengers marveled at how the patterns of Reaper and her calf were different, yet both beautiful in their own way. As we headed home, visibility improved as we approached the mouth of Plymouth Harbor and the sun started to break through the clouds. Another wonderful day offshore having the opportunity to see these endangered animals in their natural environments, especially a mother and calf pair.

9 am Whale Watch Trip - Leah

With the fact that we only had a mile and a half visibility for this mornings trip, we had a pretty excellent trip. It took a little while to find whales in the fog and haze, but we did find some out there today. As we were heading out to the bank there were at least two minke whales that were in the area. They weren't staying up for to long, they'd surface twice then disappear from view. Also between seeing the minkes in the water there were a few schools of tuna that were startling the birds at the surface of the water and feeding very quickly on bait under the surface. Some were coming up so quickly they were almost clearing the surface of the water. Also along our path to search for more whales we had a fairly good batch of birds around in the water. We had four or five wilsons storm petrels, a few sooty shearwater's, a group of greater shearwater's, and a Jaeger.

As we continued looking we found a set of humpback whales, this set turned out to be Reaper and calf. They were nice to watch because even though the calf is small and would not necessarily have enough blubber to need to lift its tail when diving this calf was great at it. The calf did very well traveling along with mom. Overall, even though we only saw a handful of whales today we did see many species of animal out on the water this morning.

June 17th, 2010 - 2 pm Public Whale Watch

Wow, what a trek we had this afternoon. We had a completely different trip in the afternoon than in the morning. The wind picked up a bit in the afternoon, which would make a naturalist hope that this was a positive thing and would stir up some more animals and activity. But, you can never make assumptions when you are on a boat in a completely vast open ocean.

We had a little better visibilty at the start of the trip, then the previous trip of the day, but it then got a little worse and made for a hard time finding the whales. We searched for quite a long time out there this afternoon and it was rough not having anything out there at the surface. We had a few Wilsons storm petrels but other than that we couldn't find anything. We tried looking where we had been during the morning trip but those two whales skedaddled.

Then we tried to pick up a group of four whales that one of the other whale watching companies had tracked and we couldn't find them either. We started to get very close to thinking we were going to get completely skunked and then the ultimate in awesomely amazing things happened, we got a'SALT'ed. We picked up a blow from a whale I had not seen in three years. No one can fathom just how exciting it was for me to see her again. We had found Salt and her new calf Zelle.

Salt is our most famous humpback whale and I could not believe that I had been blessed with seeing her today of all days. She saved the day. We got to watch her and her calf for quite a while. At first they were just swimming and diving, and then we got to see Zelle nursing. Again, I was trying not to make assumptions but after calves feed they tend to be very happy, elated even, which brings about some much more active behaviors or so I hoped. And to my amazement the calf started breaching, tail slapping and all together having a great time.

The calf basically spent a lot of time showing off to us exactly what it could do. And mom, in order to not disappoint and not let the calf have all the attention gave us one HUGE lovely breach, right off the stern of the boat. I was not ready for that, but she is one beautiful and elegant and grand animal. And I owe her a lot right now. That trip certainly could not have been beat.

Whale Watching Trip June 16, 2010

9 am and 2 pm Whale Watch Trips - Fred

Today was a day where we had to "work for our whales". On the AM trip we had slight seas but often very poor visibility, especially around the whales. On the PM trip the visibility improved somewhat, but the wind and seas also had picked up quite a bit, making for a bumpy time spent with the whales.

On the AM trip we was aboard the Tails of the Sea, and we had decent visibility UNTIL we got to Stellwagen Bank and started to look for whales. Unfortunately, the same conditions that make Stellwagen Bank a very important area for both whales and whale watchers (where upwellings of cold, nutrient-rich water mixing at the surface fuel an extremely productive food web) also cause the area to have less visibility on some days than the areas around it (those upwellings of cold water mixing at the surface often cause the air above the Bank to be chilled below the dew point, resulting in dense fog at times). So, we had a choice to make - we could hang around away from the fog, hoping that a whale or two might be spotted "out in the clear", away from the food-rich areas, or we could venture into the fog, where the probability of being close to whales was a lot higher, except that the chance of actually being able to see them was considerably lower. We bravely chose the latter.

We did manage to find a solitary adult humpback whale named Pisces a bit N of the SE corner of Stellwagen bank who was slowly moving to the W. Its motion was fairly consistent for quite a while, allowing us to parallel it for a time. We had to work at staying with it, since the fog at times was thick enough that we had to locate the whale after it surfaced by ~listening~ for its spout - it often came to the surface just beyond our limit of visibility. Eventually, Pisces changed direction and we lost it (which was particularly frustrating for us, since we were also trying to keep track of it for the sake of the whale watch charter on the Captain John & Son IV, which left the dock some time after we did).

We thought we had re-found Pisces when we thought we heard it spouting in the fog about ten minutes after last seeing it, but we soon discovered that the spout sounds were coming from a solitary minke whale in the same general area. So, we did end up seeing two whales of two different species, but it was hard work - nonetheless, I am sure everyone aboard the Tails of the Sea thought the effort was well worth it. (It was not long after we left the whales, heading to the W, that we "punched out" of the fog bank to find a partly sunny morning with good visibility for the way home.)

On the PM trip we were aboard the Captain John & Son II, and we found that the wind had picked up quite a bit from the calm day we experienced in the AM, but at least the visibility seemed to be pretty good. We found a pair of adult humpback whales not too far from the SW corner of Stellwagen Bank. These whales appeared to be feeding all the while we watched them, although we actually saw direct surface evidence of feeding behavior only once. We identified the two whales as Tulip and Ursa. Tulip has mostly black tail flukes, but with a grayish-white area on the right fluke that supposedly resembles a tulip flower (however, while I do find the mark very useful for identification, I personally don't see the flower).

Ursa has much more white on its tail flukes than does Tulip, but the most obvious feature is the several areas of parallel back-and-white stripes left by teeth from a killer whale attack sometime in its past ("Ursa" is the Latin word for "bear" - Ursa's flukes appear as if they had been raked by bear claws). Interestingly, a fair number of our humpbacks do show killer whale teeth marks, and, curiously, the white areas scar as dark and the dark areas scar as light, so that parallel dark scars can be found on light areas and parallel light scars can be found on dark areas, and Ursa's flukes do show both possibilities. (We also had a brief look at a minke whale a couple hundred yards away from the humpbacks.)

On most of the trips I've been on over the last couple of weeks there have been few birds seen (likely reflecting the apparent fact that the sand lance (the small fish that the birds and whales feed on) has seemed to be staying deeper than near the surface. Happily, on the PM trip especially, we did see quite a few shearwaters (mostly sooty shearwaters with a few greater shearwaters mixed in), so perhaps more sand lance is spending more time closer to the surface.

Whale Watching Trip June 16, 2010

10 am Whale Watch - Diane

Who would have ever thought that having 200 eighth graders on board could be so much fun! Well, today was and we thank the Seekonk Middle school for their well behaved students. This morning was hazy and on the cool side with rain predicted for this afternoon. The water was smooth, the winds light and our visibility was about two miles to begin with and then shutting down to about 1/4 as we reached Stellwagen.

Once we reached the Gurnet lighthouse we began to set up our three teaching stations. Krill did a plankton tow and used electron microscopes to observe and identify what came up in the net. We set up a nautical knot tying station so that our deckhands, Mark and Dave could teach the students some of the more common knots used on a boat, Captain Russ opened the wheelhouse to all that were interested in learning how he navigates.

Unfortunately, the closer we got to the bank, the denser the fog got and the harder it became to spot any blows. We did spot some turbulence in the water and then noticed the telltale fins of the blue fin tuna. This is always a good sign to see these magnificent apex predators , as it means they are feeding and have made it through the Straits of Florida in their yearly migration.

We can only hope and pray that we will continue to see them next year, in light of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The results could be far reaching and ultimately disastrous for these beautiful creatures. While watching the tuna we then spotted 2 whales. It was a mother, calf pair and the mother is known to us as Reaper because of the mark on the left side of her tail fluke. Reaper is a Humpback that had her calf in the warm waters of the Silver Banks off the coast of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. We were able to observe them at length until it was time to return to port.

As luck would have it, and because the visibility increased, we were able to spot 4 Minke whales and another Humpback on the way home. It was a good day and a great job by Captain Russ.

Whale Watching Trip June 14, 2010

9 am Whale Watch Trip - Lauren

We had a very foggy day offshore with visibility only being 50-100ft in-front of of the boat! Winds were decreasing about 5-10 mph from the North and sea conditions were very calm, glass like. We took our charter group to about the south east corner, where we picked up Reaper and calf, and 2-3 other humpback whales very actively feeding at the surface.

There was lots of kick feeding followed by bubble clouds and dragging. These guys were chasing lots of bait and charging through the water. We could even see the sand lance jumping out of the water trying to escape the whales bubble nets! Everyone got a very good look at the whales kick feeding right next to the boat!

9 am Whale Watch Trip - Krill

We had dense fog as we headed offshore in the hopes of finding humpback whales on the eastern side of Stellwagen Bank. As we crossed over the bank and continued to the east, visibility greatly improved. We were able to pick up our first sighting which turned out to be a mother and calf pair. This mom turned out to be Freckles traveling with her calf of this year.

Mother and calf were traveling to the west and right back into the dense fog bank. So we said goodbye to this pair and headed east once again. Unfortunately the fog closed in on us once again, but we were able to find 10 to 15 humpback whales that were feeding at the surface.

Having whales lunge feeding at the surface gave us a chance of keeping track of these amazing animals. We were able to identify only a few whales that included Cardhu, a female who has come back to our waters many times with a calf by her side. And we were able to identify a trio that included Reaper and her calf of this year feeding with another adult named Jabiru.

Fog is the enemy of the whale watcher, since we find whales by simply looking for them. But today we dealt as best we could with the fog and ended up with a fabulous whale watch.

Whale Watching Trip June 12, 2010

9 am and 2 pm Whale Watch Trips - Fred

Today we had a very nice day on the water. The weather had been threatening all day, but we never had any significant rain at all until we got back into Plymouth Harbor at the end of the PM trip, long after leaving the whales. Furthermore, the marine forecast for wind was wrong - while we were supposed to have significant wind and waves out of the S all day, the wind was quite mild on our AM trip and almost nonexistent on our PM trip. (There was a gentle SE swell when we were far to the E on the AM trip, but it didn't seem to bother anyone aboard.) Of course, ANY day you can see whales is a GOOD day, but, when the weather cooperates, it's always even nicer.

On our AM trip we ended up at the SE corner of Stellwagen Bank, where we had a chance to watch a number of humpback whales. We started with a trio of slowly surface traveling humpbacks - two of them turned out to be Pele and Bayou. We moved on to spend a short time with a solitary unknown humpback, and then moved over to a pair of whales, who turned out to be Barb (who, despite the name, is a male - the name is not short for "Barbara", but is based on a fishhook barb-like mark on his tail flukes) and the 2008 calf of Compass, who treated everyone aboard to a close approach - while we were stopped in the water watching them, they approached us, went under one side of the boat, and then came out under the bow before slowly moving off.

While this close approach certainly was the highlight for our AM trip, the biggest surprise on the trip occurred on the way home, when we stopped for two humpback females (Nile and Cardhu) "logging" (resting at the surface of the water) just N of the SW corner of Stellwagen. (We have not seem many whales near the SW corner as of late, which is actually a bit unusual for most spring seasons, so to find these two whales there was a bit unexpected.)

On our PM trip we intentionally targeted the SW corner of Stellwagen Bank (where we had seen Nile and Cardhu earlier). This strategy paid off for us, since, as it turned out, we had a few humpbacks, a couple of minke whales, and even a finback there (and we have not seen many finbacks during this season so far, so that itself was a bit of a surprise). Unlike our AM trip further to the E, where most whales seemed to have been "hanging around" between feeding periods, on the PM trip it did seem as if all of the whales were feeding (although not at the surface - it did seem as if all of the whales were diving towards - and surfacing back from - schools of fish located deeper in the water column).

One surprise on the PM trip was seeing the 2010 calf of Cajun apparently feeding along with its mother, and with Nile, Anchor, and Tongs - time after time, Cajun's calf would dive along with the adults and then surface with them a few minutes later (although there were a couple of longer dives where the calf did surface for a couple of quick breaths in the middle - calves cannot hold their breaths as long as the adults can). What was a bit unusual about Cajun's calf's behavior is that, during the spring season, many calves seem fairly content to just "play around" at the surface while their mothers feed below, to turn fish into thick, rich whale milk, while some other calves can sometimes be seen merely passively mimicking their mothers' feeding behavior. In this calf's case, though, it really did seem to be trying to feed alongside the adults as a member of an organized feeding squadron the entire time we were observing them.

I do suspect that the calf will still be receiving additional months worth of milk from Cajun, but my hunch is that this calf must be one of the older calves in the population, probably born early in the winter season on the Caribbean calving grounds. Further evidence of the calf's age was provided by seeing the calf's tail flukes in the air a few of the times when it dove - most younger calves are not buoyant enough yet to have their flukes appear during normal dives.

If the feeding by the squadron of Anchor, Nile, Tongs, Cajun, and Cajun's calf was the high point of our PM trip, the low point had to be finding an aluminum beer can floating on the calm surface close to the whales. I have no idea where the can came from, of course - hopefully it was not from our boat - perhaps it was from one of the many sport fishing boats also on the SW corner not far from us - however, one can reasonably assume that it was from some careless or clueless member of our species, and NOT from one of the whales.

Because of the lack of wind and waves I cannot even suggest that maybe it simply fell off or blew off a boat. It was somewhat flattened, so it would not have rolled very well anyway, The most logical conclusion had to be that it was THROWN into the water. It is absolutely unfathomable to me how anyone could enjoy boating on beautiful Massachusetts Bay and then literally trash that beauty by throwing a beer can into the water - sad, very, very sad. (We did take a few couple of minutes away from watching whales to have one of our crew members retrieve the beer can with a gaff after our captain maneuvered our boat into position to do so.