As we headed out of Plymouth Harbor, we had less than 1/4 mile visibility all around the boat. Since we locate whales mainly using visual cues such as the spout of the whale or the body of the animal at the surface, reduced visibility presents a challenge to us when finding whales any distance from the boat. But our captain, crew and her passengers were in high spirits and were up to the challenge.
We headed to the southwest corner of Stellwagen Bank and slowed down once we crossed over the corner. The southwest corner is the shallowest corner of the bank with water depths less than 70 feet. As we slowly criss-crossed over this area, we stopped occasionally to listen for whales and the sounds they make when they return to the surface to breath.
It may sound funny, listening for whales, but this is a tried and true technique that can be used to find whales in any type of reduced visibility. What we are listening for is the loud exhalation that whales make when they exhale the air they have kept in their bodies during a dive. That "swooshing" sound can be heard over 1/2 mile away under the right conditions and once heard, allows us to move into the area in the hopes of finally making a visual on the animal.
At the edge of the mist, we spotted a minke whale surfacing eerily in the fog, just off our starboard side. That combined with the presence of a number of seabirds gave us hope that we were in the right area for larger baleen whales like finback and humpback whales. It started to rain, on and off, which was good since rain can often eliminate fog. As long as it didn't pour, we were doing just fine.
During one of our listening stops, we finally found what we were looking for as a large finback whale surfaced off the bow. We moved slowly towards this whale and noticed that it was traveling in a circular manner. This type of swimming behavior is typically used by finbacks when they are feeding deep on some type of small schooling fish. This behavior was perfect for us and for the conditions offshore for it meant that the whale wasn't going very far each time it returned to the surface to breath.
At one point during the trip, we were holding our position for the finback whale and unexpectedly, a minke whale surfaced just off our starboard side also traveling in a circular manner. Our captain just held our position as we watched the smallest of the baleen whales surface right next to the boat. We were all thrilled to get such wonderful looks at this minke whale and could clearly see the white flipper patches on the top of each pectoral fin.
There must have been a lot of bait in this area for we ended up seeing at least 3 to 4 minke whales and one finback whale. Also in this area was a large amount of marine debris including a birthday balloon floating at the surface. Our captain and crew took a few minutes out of our whale watch to pick up this plastic. Balloons, plastic bags and other man-made items represents great hazards to whales and other marine wildlife. We thank our captain and crew for taking the time to help fix this problem making it safer for marine wildlife offshore!
As we headed home, visibility continued to improve to over 1 mile so we kept our eyes out for additional sightings. The sharp eyes of our captain found the last sighting for us today, a blue shark.
We don't see many blue sharks spending time at the surface, but this animal was moving slowly exposing its large dorsal fin and tail fin out of the water. We estimated that this shark must have been over 15 feet in length and marveled at its beauty and gracefulness as it continued to swim at the surface. And then suddenly and without warning, the shark seemed to sense our presence and quickly turned and sped away with such force that it surprised us all.
Overall, a fabulous day offshore in the fog with finback whales, minkes whales, greater shearwaters, Northern gannets and blue sharks.
