12 noon whale watch - Tammy
We left Plymouth with sunny skies and increasing winds. Our passengers onboard the Tails of the Sea were enthusiastic and excited to find whales. As we traveled east across Stellwagen Bank, our captain spotted a blow off the port side of our vessel. This animal took just a couple of breaths before disappearing below the waves. Although we waited several minutes for this animal we did not see it surface again and we did not want to spend too much time waiting. We did not get a very good look at this whale, but we suspected that it was likely a finback whale.
After travelling east across the Bank for quite some time and having no additional sightings, we decided to try our luck searching to the northwest. We were now heading directly into the wind and seas and we had quite the ride! But it did not dampen the spirits of our passengers! We travelled up the middle of Stellwagen Bank and suddenly our crew member, Mike, spotted a blow. We approached this whale and we identified it as a single finback whale. This was likely the same whale we had seen earlier in the trip.
Finback whales are the second largest whale in the world and are nicknamed “the greyhounds of the sea” because of their speed. This whale was spending lots of time diving but it was staying in the same general area and was likely feeding below the surface. Despite tough conditions, our captain did a great job getting us some excellent looks at this finback. We had beautiful looks at the head and body of the whale on the right side of our boat. This finback whale also gave us great looks off the bow and as it prepared to take a deep dive it even showed us its fluke!
Finback whales very rarely raise their tails out of the water and we were so lucky to have seen this whale’s gorgeous fluke. Even though we had a bumpy ride out, we had wonderful looks at a beautiful and endangered finback whale.
