9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches - Tammy
9 am trip:
This morning we had a
mixture of sun and clouds and 2-4 foot seas as we made our way toward
Stellwagen Bank. As we travelled to the northeast we started seeing several
blows in front of us, including two blows produced by two whales travelling
together. We decided to focus on this pair and as we got closer and the larger
whale surfaced we could tell by looking at her dorsal fin that it was Boomerang
and her calf.
We saw both mom and calf gracefully fluke out on a deeper dive. Suddenly
we saw Boomerang in the air performing a spinning head breach and just as
Boomerang splashed down, her calf also
did a spinning head breach! It was spectacular to see mom and calf in the air
at the same time.
We spent the rest of our morning watching two humpback
whales, Orbit and Hancock, and we even got a quick look at a minke whale. Both humpbacks were sub-surface feeding on
their own. It’s hard to determine what whales are doing when they are diving,
but the green bubbles rising to the surface clued us in to the fact that these
two humpbacks were feeding and using bubbles to help concentrate their prey.
2 pm trip:
We had all of the same humpback whales this afternoon but
much different weather. The wind died down and we had calmer seas but by the
end of our trip it was pouring rain. What troopers we had onboard today! We started and ended our trip with two
humpbacks, Boomerang and calf and we had beautiful views of both mom and baby.
Humpback whales, Orbit and Hancock also made
appearances in the afternoon and we saw green bubbles being produced by all
three adult humpbacks, indicating that everyone was feeding below the waves.
Weather doesn’t seem to bother the whales much and despite the rain, the whales
were likely behaving as they would on any other day. We were just lucky enough
to be in their presence!
Thanks to NECWA intern Brandon for some great photos!
