June 12, 2012 Whale Watch

9 am Whale Watch - Krill 

The skies were gray, but the sightings were amazing and cheered our hearts as we watched 5 humpback whales feeding all around the boat. Most of the feeding by the humpbacks was at the surface and this made for great viewing of these rare and endangered animals.

As we approached the southwest corner of Stellwagen Bank, we saw the Tails of the Sea, our sister ship, watching Division and Barb feeding off their port side. As they moved on, we picked up this pair and were amazed to see how they coordinated their efforts to work side-by-side. Division would first kick at the water's surface creating a huge disturbance. Then both animals would dive beneath the school of fish and blow columns of bubbles to create a bubble column. As we waited for the whales to lunge at the surface, gulls and shearwaters flocked above the greenish bubbles hoping to snatch a stray sand lance.

We didn't have to wait long to see mouth's wide open scooping up as much water and fish as possible. And then Division would remain at the surface keeping her head out of the water straining as Barb did all his straining down below.

At one point and time in our whale watch, two other humpbacks that were also surface feeding in the area joined Barb and Division. But that association quickly dissolved and our pairs feed separately, but remained in the same area.

Ventisca and Wizard also maintained a very close association and even our passengers could identify the two. Ventisca has a lot of white pigmentation on her dorsal fin, tail stock and flukes while Wizard has a pointed dorsal fin and a very white ventral tail pattern.

We also had Etch-a-Sketch, another female humpback whale, in the area who was also surface feeding, but on her own. And in the midst of all this excitement, a young gray seal surfaced right next to the boat. What a trip!

2 pm Whale Watch - Michael

Watch video taken during this trip offshore. What fun to see Barb breaching off the port side of our boat. Krill missed the first breach from Barb, but not the second one!

While the weather conditions on today's trip was a little rough, we were lucky enough to observe some great activity out on Stellwagen Bank.  Our early sightings out on the bank were of Minke whales, traveling quickly, chasing after the American Sand Lance and actively feeding beneath the surface. While these animals move very quickly and only come up for one breath at a time, we did manage to get some great looks at these animals close to the boat and we could even spot schools of bait swimming all around us.

The majority of our trip was spent watching two different pairs of Humpback whales: Ventisca and Wizard, and Barb and Division.  Both pairs were feeding up at the surface, giving us a great chance to see just how these animals are capable of eating 1-2 tons of fish every day! Ventisca was particularly active when it came to fluke out dives, giving us great opportunities to photograph the fantastic markings on the dorsal and ventral sides of her flukes, as well as that distinctive dorsal fin. Towards the end of the trip we were lucky enough to see Barb breach twice off the bow of our boat!! It is not every day you get to see a 40 ft long animal jump out of the water!  We ended our trip with several more Minke sightings as we moved off Stellwagen and headed back to Plymouth.