9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches - Leah and Krill
9 am trip - Leah
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| Right dorsal fin of a humpback whale named Salt. |
2 pm trip - Krill
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| Fluke out dive by a humpback whale. |
Winds were decreasing as we headed to the backside of the Cape. In this area, we found at least 15 humpback whales and 3 minke whales. Our first sighting was a whale named Pox. This humpback has a very black ventral tail pattern which makes photo-ID a bit tricky.
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| Ventral tail pattern of Pox. |
We passed a mother and calf pair, but were not able to identify this mother. The calf will not be named until it is 2 to 4 years old, so the mom is the key to the photo-ID for this pair.
Our next sighting was a humpback whale named Loon, for the bird-like white markings on its right fluke. This whale tail breached out of the water as we watched it off the bow of the boat. As we moved away from this whale, we picked up a trio of whales that were just off Race Point Beach.
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| 3 humpback whales off Race Point Beach |
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| Convict's right dorsal fin. |
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| Fluke out dive by Convict. |
We identified the animals in this group as Convict, Cantilever and Spirit. They seemed to be feeding deep for they were not moving out of the area as we continued to watch them just off the beach. As we continued to watch this group, a fourth whale surfaced behind these animals and blew bubbles. Not sure what was going on, but this new whale only stayed with this trio for a few minutes before moving on.
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| Bubble rising behind this mystery whale. |
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| Spirit fluking out. |
Close to the end of our trip, we picked up the most famous whale in the world, a humpback whale named Salt. This whale was the first whale to be named and has lead the way in our understanding of these very rare and endangered animals.
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| Right dorsal fin of Salt. |
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| Fluke out dive by Salt. |
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| Ventral tail pattern of Salt. |
One of our last sightings was a male humpback whale named Seal. Seal also appeared to be feeding deep, but gave us a great look at the animal's tail as it flaked out just off our starboard side.
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| Exhalation by Salt. |
Humpback whales identified include: Manhattan, Pox, Loon, Salt, Longboard, Cantilever, Convict, Spirit, Seal and Hornet. Seabird sightings include: manx shearwaters, Northern gannets (adults and juveniles) and common terns.
