September 3, 2012 Whale Watches

12 pm and 2 pm Whale Wathes - Krill and Tammy

Commercial fishing vessel - dragger.

Humpback whale. 

12 pm trip - Krill

Andrew assisting at the educational table.  

As we headed offshore, crew member Andrew assisted with the educational table. Andrew did a fabulous job providing information on all the neat whale artifacts that we have on display for our passengers onboard. As we came close to the tip of the Cape, we started picking up more seabirds that were feeding off Race Point. In this area, we got a quick glimpse of a juvenile Northern gannet, the largest of the seabirds in our waters. 

Juvenile Northern gannet.

As we continued down the backside of the Cape, we found at least 15 humpback whales and 5 minke whales off the backside of Cape Cod. At the beginning of our trip. most of these animals were on long dives, an indication that they were feeding. Our first sighting was an active whale that we identified as Skateboard. This animal rolled on its side and lifted its pectoral fin (flipper) out of the water. This behavior is called flipper slapping and it allows us to see just how long a humpback's flipper can be!

Skateboard flipper slapping.  

 We picked up a few single humpback whales that were staying down for long periods of time. so we moved to a trio that we were seeing off the bow. This small group of whales included Bounce, Wave and an unknown what we were not able to identify. At one point, this group came right over to the boat and proceeded to swim under it to surface on the other side! What a sight for one and all!

This group also went under the bow of the boat giving our passengers a wonderful look.

As we continued to watch this trio, Wave did a tail breach right off the left side of the boat. These are the moments when your realize just how big and powerful these gentle giants are. Just amazing!

We moved on to find a humpback whale named Manhattan feeding in this area. And to our surprise, some of our passengers had a really great look at a loggerhead sea turtle as it swam slowly down the right side of the boat. 

Humpback whale Manhattan.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle.

All in all a fabulous day offshore. We were able to identify these humpback whales: Skateboard, Apex, Bounce, Wave, Cantilever, Subterranean, Manhattan, and Seal. Seabirds included the juvenile Northern Gannet, manx shearwaters and common terns. 

2 pm trip: Tammy

We were expecting rough seas this afternoon but we actually had a nice ride out to the backside of Cape Cod where we have been watching whales over the past several days. Our first sighting was of a humpback whale, Thumper, and her 2012 calf. This calf was very curious and it hung out with us for quite awhile, coming up on either side of the boat and rolling under our bow. The calf’s whole body was visible and we could see all the barnacle markings on the head and we saw right down the large blowholes on the top of the head. We even got to see the calf spy-hopping, or picking its head up out of the water and nursing or drinking milk from mom.

After leaving Thumper and calf we traveled further to the east where we could see blows all around us, both near and far! We started with a trio of humpback whales which quickly became a group of four when another whale joined. This group included a whale named Elephant and we saw beautiful fluke out dives from all four animals. Also in this area was a pair of humpback whales, one of which was a whale named Fracture. We had several beautiful looks at both groups of whales and we even got to see the group of four feeding at the surface.

The group produced a bubble net to help concentrate the bait into a tighter group so that the whales can easily engulf them. After lunging through the bait, the whales will push the water out of the mouth and the fish gets stuck inside the baleen. We didn’t see the whales lunging mouth open but we did catch the end of the lunge and we witnessed one of whales straining. We had another quick look at Fracture and friend before heading home. Another wonderful afternoon of whale watching!

My camera broke during today’s trip and I wasn’t able to get very many photos. If anyone has any good photos/video that they would like to share please send to Krill (our head naturalist and administrator of the blog) at krillcarson@mac.com. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.