12 pm Whale Watch with Tammy and 2 pm Whale Watch with Krill
12 pm trip: Tammy
We made our way toward Stellwagen Bank with a steady 2-3
foot swell-what a ride! As we made our way just south of the Bank, the seas
calmed a bit, the sun emerged and it turned out to be a beautiful September day
offshore.
Our first sighting was of a single humpback whale who was
flipper slapping in the distance. As we approached the animal it stopped
flippering and went on a dive without fluking out. We quickly moved on to a
trio of humpback whales traveling together. This trio took several breaths at
the surface before raising their flukes as they dove. This trio included a
humpback whale named Twine. In this same area we had looks at a single humpback
whale named Manhattan.
Although we often see humpbacks being social in small
groups, these groupings do not last for long periods of time and humpback
whales are typically considered solitary animals. We definitely saw some
examples of these fluid baleen whale relationships today for when we saw our
trio of whales surface they had become a group of four. The group of four
included whales named Twine, Longboard and Sanchal. We had some amazing looks
at the four whales as they travelled together and their surfacing indicated
they may have been feeding deeper in the water column. We even saw a single
tail breach and a single lobtail from one of the animals.
As quickly as the foursome of humpbacks had formed, it broke
up and we had a trio once again. We then noticed Manhattan traveling with
another whale that may have been a part of the foursome. We had some other quick
looks at other pairs and single humpbacks today and overall, we likely had
about 8-10 animals in the general area. As always, we were so lucky to get to
spend time with endangered humpack whales!
2 pm trip - Krill
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| Coast Guard Administrative building at Race Point. |
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| Old Harbor U.S. Life Saving Station |
We headed to the shores of Race Point, the tip of Cape Cod for we had great sigthtings in this location yesterday. While we moved slowly along the beach, we had a great look at the Old Harbor U.S. Life Saving Station that was originally situated on Nauset Beach at the entrance of Chatham Harbor. Threatened by coastal erosion, this building was moved from Nauset Beach to Race Point Beach in 1977 and is overseen by the Cape Cod National Seashore.
To learn more about this historic building, go to http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/maritime/old.htm
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| RVs on Race Point Beach. RVs |
Our first sighting was a pair of humpback whales that were very close to shore. We were able to identify only one individual in this group and that was a whale named Goalpost. This animal had recently been disentangled from fishing gear by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies Disentanglement Team. Thanks to this team, Goalpost is looking good and is gear free!
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| Goalpost off Race Point Beach. |
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| Unknown humpback off Race Point Beach. |
Goalpost has a very distinctive dorsal fin that always reminds me of a witch's nose. The dorsal fin humpback whales can be quite distinctive and help biologists and scientists identify over 2100 individuals within the waters of the Gulf of Maine.
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| Right dorsal fin of Goalpost. |
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| Right dorsal fin of unknown humpback whale. |
As we were watching this pair, one of our passengers called out about a possible shark off our starboard side. This turned out to be a sighting of an ocean sunfish,
Mola mola, the heaviest bony fish in the world. The dorsal fin of an ocean sunfish can look just like that of a shark. But ocean sunfish typically skull (repeatedly pick the fin up out of the water and then flop it back down into the water) with the fin when they are at the water's surface so look for this behavior to help separate these two types of large fish.
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| Left dorsal fin of an ocean sunfish. |
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| Ocean sunfish floating left side up. |
Ocean sunfish are commonly seen in our waters in August through October as they migrate great distances to feed on jellyfish in our cold New England waters. This sunfish came right over to the boat off our stern and gave our passengers a great close look. Thanks to Dennis Savage for the video that he took of this animal when it was off the stern. Great job Dennis!
Our last sighting was another pair of humpback whales that turned out to be Zeppelin and Bounce. Zeppelin is an adult female who was born in 1989 to a mother named Milkyway. This female has had 4 calves since her birth.
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| Fluke out by Bounce. |
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| Fluke out by Bounce. |
Bounce was born in 2007 to a mother named Fern. Interesting to see an older whale associating with a young whale. Both whales seemed to be enjoying the beautiful weather offshore as they traveled slowly to the southeast, side-by-side.
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| Right dorsal fin of Zeppelin. |
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| Fluke out by Zeppelin. |
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| Ventral tail pattern of Zeppelin. |
Humpback what that we identified included: Goalpost, Zeppelin and Bounce. We also had looks at a number of different seabirds and sea ducks including Northern gannets, greater shearwaters, Cory's shearwaters, manx shearwaters, common terns and white-winged scoters.
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| Flock of white-winged scoters. |
