12 noon Whale Watch with Krill and 2 pm Whale Watch with Tiffany
12 noon trip - Krill
Gorgeous day offshore with winds letting go out of the WNW and seas calming down a bit. As we headed towards the tip of Cape Cod, we started seeing a number of different pelagic species of birds including Northern gannets. Many of the gannets and common terns were diving into the water as they tried to catch small schooling fish.
 |
| Rainbow maker - Manhattan. |
 |
| Manhattan fluking out. |
Our first sighting was a pair of humpback whales that we identified as Manhattan and Goalpost. Both whales were traveling slowly at the surface, side-by-side. As we watched them surface a few times, Manhattan got very excited and started tail breaching and lobtailing off our starboard side.
 |
| Lobtailing by Manhattan. |
 |
| Manhattan tail breaching. |
 |
| Tail breach by Manhattan. |
 |
| Tail breach by Manhattan. |
Hard to say what motivated Manhattan to be so excited, but there were a number of vessels that were moving quickly through the area and very close to this resting pair. Manhattan rolled over and started doing a behavior called inverted lobtailing. This gave us a really nice look at Manhattan's ventral tail pattern which has a number of vertical black lines on the left fluke.
 |
| Manhattan, inverted lobtailing. |
Both Goapost and Manhattan arched their backs and fluked out a number of times. You can compare the ventral tail patterns for these individuals and see that each is unique in its own way. These patterns can act as fingerprints that help scientists and biologists identify individual humpback whales that feed in the waters of the Gulf of Maine.
 |
| Ventral tail pattern of Goalpost. |
 |
| Ventral tail pattern of Manhattan. |
Our next sighting was a single humpback whale named Longboard. Longboard appeared to be feeding deep and even created a bubble net as it was feeding on small schooling fish.
 |
| Longboard. |
As we held position for Longboard, another humpback whale surfaced off our port side and swam in a clockwise direction. This is an indication that this humpback was also feeding deep beneath the water's surface. Suddenly, one of our passengers spotted a young gray seal off the side of the boat. This seal then popped up off the bow of the boat giving all our passengers a really great look. The seal was resting with its nose straight up, a behavior called "bottling."
 |
| Young gray seal. |
 |
| Young gray seal looking at us! |
Before we realized it, it was time to head home. As we slowly moved back through the area where we had been whale watching, we picked up Manhattan and Goalpost logging or resting at the surface. As we passed them on the starboard side of the boat, only Manhattan fluked out as it went on a deep dive.
A great day offshore with amazing passengers who really enjoyed their time offshore. Humpback whales identified include: Manhattan, Goalpost and Longboard. Seabirds and terns include: Northern gannets, greater shearwaters, Cory's shearwaters and common terns.
2 pm Trip - Tiffany
On the beautiful clear afternoon of September 23rd
we headed off shore toward Race Point.
Once we moved closer towards The Race we started to pick up a large
amount of pelagic bird activity.
We had greater and manx shearwaters, large flocks of terns, and even
immature and mature northern gannets which were plunge diving from great
heights in order to catch fish. This
was a great indication that there was lots of food in the area!
Shortly after we found 6 to 7 humpback whales surface feeding! Humpback whale Putter and Manhattan
were bubble net feeding together. These
two whales kept coming up right next to the boat and giving us great looks at
baleen.
The whales would blow bubbles deeper in the water column and
Putter would then come up through the bubbles with an open mouth to capture as
much fish as possible. Manhattan
would then lung sideways through the bubbles to capture food. We also had humpback whale Longboard
surface feeding further away from the boat.
All three of these whales were repetitively giving us
gorgeous looks at their unique black and white ventral fluke patterns as they
lifted their fluke’s high in the air for fluke-out dives.
