Saturday, July 25, 2015 Whale Watches

9 am trip - Tammy

We were lucky enough to see active whales on both whale watching trips today! Large splashes in the distance caught our attention as we traveled across Stellwagen Bank. This active whale was a humpback named Bayou.



humpback whale Bayou



a chin breach by Bayou

 Bayou showed us the full range of humpback whale behaviors from lobtailing to all types of breaching.

spinning head breach by Bayou

 Bayou breached, lobtailed and flipper slapped repeatedly for about 20 minutes! It was amazing to see these high energy behaviors over and over again.

tail breach by Bayou

 Our second sighting was another humpback whale named Venom. This female humpback was alternating between traveling and diving. We spent the rest of our morning Venom before heading back.

Venom's tail

2 pm trip - Tammy

We were excited to see that some animals were still active into this afternoon, which does not always happen. Two humpback whales were exhibiting acrobatic behaviors; first about 100 yards apart and then they got closer together. We identfied this pair as Northstar and Hippocampus.

Northstar (bottom) and Hippocampus (top)

Again we were treated to breaching, lobtailing, flipper-slapping complete with rolling and trumpeting by the whales.

Humpback whale breaching off our stern

lobtailing behavior by Hippocampus

Hippocampus inverted lobtailing right off the bow!

Much like the morning, we capped off the day with several great looks at humpback whale, Venom. What an exciting day offshore!

Venom diving

Saturday, July 18, 2015 Whale Watches

9 am trip - Tammy

We had lots of activity on Stellwagen Bank this morning. Our first sighting was of a humpback whale trio which included a mother and calf and an escort. The escort, a whale named Northstar, quickly left the trio and we spent lots of time with the mother, who we identified as Nimbus, and her calf. Great looks at this special pair!

Nimbus and calf

 Our next sighting was of an active humpback whale that showed us many of the acrobatic behaviors that humpbacks are famous for! We saw lobtailing, breaching and flipper slaping! We only see breaching on ~10% of our trips and no matter how many times you get to witness it, it's always amazing to see.

humpback whale breaching

humpback whale flipper slapping

lobtailing behavior by a humpback whale

 We ended our trip with a pair of adult humpback whales named Etch-a-sketch and Tunguska. Etch-a-sketch is the granddaughter of Salt, the most studied humpback whale in the world. Last year Etch-a-sketch had her first calf, making Salt a great grandmother! It's always nice to see old "friends" offshore.


Etch-a-sketch's tail

2 pm trip - Tammy

High activity continued for this afternoon's trip. A group of three humpback whales, Apex and calf and escort, was our first sighting. Apex's calf showed us some tail breaching and some small chin breaches while it traveled beside mom. Another whale joined this trio, forming a group of four humpbacks.

Apex and calf

tail breach by Apex's calf

Also in this same area were two pairs of humpback whales, Echo and Tectonic and Pele with an unidentified whale. We had nice looks at both pairs as they swam by and fluked.

humpback whale Echo

Nimbus and calf were also around this afternoon and the calf seemed to be having a grand ol' time. We saw displays of tail breaching, chin breaching and flipper slapping from Nimbus' calf.

Nimbus' calf

In between bouts of activity, mom and calf would travel into the wind and we had great looks at their bodies as they surfed over the waves. 

Nimbus' calf riding the waves

Overall, a fanastic day offshore with lots of whales and lots of activity!

Friday, July 17, 2015 - 9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches

9 am Trip - Leah

More amazing trips off shore, these whales have been very active and great to watch throughout the summer.  Every once in a while we see other things out their like basking sharks shown below. 

Here are some photos of Shuffleboard and her new 2015 calf.  We love to see mother's and calves off shore, they are so much fun to watch and see how much the calves learn throughout the season.

Flipper slapping is one of our fun behaviors to see, these whales use this behavior to try to communicate with other whales and to tell boats in the area that they exist.  

Above you will see more breaching, we've been getting spoiled by breaching while we go to Stellwagen Bank.  Below we have a Cory's shearwater. 

One of our crew members was nice enough to collect a balloon that that was floating at the surface f the water.  This allows some of our turtles, ocean sunfish and other animals that eat jelly fish be safe from eating the wrong food like plastic.  

2 pm Trip - Leah

Some great feeding behaviors during the afternoon trip.  You can see lunge feeding and surface active feeding, followed by straining to get ride of the water in the whales mouth trapping the fish inside and swallowing them whole. 

A quick tail breach from one of our whales and also a large group of wilson's storm petrel's flying around the waters surface. 

Tuesday, July 14, 2015 - 9 am and 2 pm Whale Watches

9 am Trip - Leah

Today we saw an amazing amount of activity.  There were feeding behaviors and high activity behaviors like breaching.  

Here is a humpback straining at the surface of the water.  It's amazing to see these whales up close and personal.  On this whales jaw you can see white marks on the left side of the upper jaw, which means this whale is right handed.  It uses this side of its jaw to scrape and scare sand lance out of the sand on the sea floor.

Above is one of my favorite sequence shots, not just because this whale breached but the sequence of faces of passengers not paying attention then noticing something amazing was happening.  

Another high activity behavior you can occasionally see is this inverted lob tailing behavior of the whale slapping its tail multiple times at the surface of the water, while it is on its back.  

Such a good trip and great sights to see on an amazing morning trip.  

2 pm Trip - Leah

The afternoon trip was also amazing.  It was great to see the number of whales that were off shore and there was again a variety of excellent behaviors.  

An awesome chin breach from one of our humpback whales.  They looked like they were showing off just for us and giving us the best showing.  

Some amazing fluke shots of our humpbacks seen recently, Putter is at the top, Calderas is the next fluke down, a dorsal surface of a whales tail and another one diving behind it.  

Yet again, the most impressive behavior to see, humpbacks breaching.  Neatest thing to see, but it sounds like the most painful thing in the world.  The loudest belly flop.