A bit of a cloudy day today but the weather never stops the whales from doing whatever they need to do out on Stellwagen Bank. We had a wilson's storm petrel that flew quite close to the boat and is one of the smallest birds we see and hardest to keep track of while they dart around above the water.
We came across Northstar today who is very easy to identify by the large scars on the whales back in front of the dorsal fin. Almost every whale in the water has some type of scars or scrapes from either boat strikes or entanglement scars. Even as we try to minimize our impact on then and educate passengers about the dangers we pose to these whales accidents to these whales still happen.
We also came across Nile, one of my favorite whales, she's the best whale to see because no matter what happens we can always count on her to be around for passengers to see.
I love going out offshore to see the whales no matter what they are doing because they always surprise me and always keep me coming back for more. I still learn more about them everyday and will continue watching them because they still fascinate me.
2 pm Trip - Leah
During the afternoon trip we had a bit of an ominous looking sky but that didn't stop us from finding and watching some wonderful whales. We had great sights of humpback whales but I think our finback whale sighting was the best of the day.
We found Spoon and her calf and they were up to their usual active selves rolling and traveling around. We got one breach which I got the frustrating photo of the splash at the end, you can't get them all. Sometimes you're lucky, and I wasn't lucky this time.
Then after watching Spoon and her calf for a bit we found a mother and calf pair of finback whales. Tis was amazing to me because we don't see this very often. Seeing the size difference between the mom and calf was ridiculous, they are such differing sizes compared to each other.
This calf finback gave us the greatest close approach it was amazing. I've never seen them come that close to the boat before and this calf was even curious about us and gave us a spyhop which I never in my wildest dreams would have expected to happen.
I didn't even know they would be curious about us like the humpbacks are, it was so fantastic. I couldn't even explain to the passengers how awesome it was for that to happen.
There they go, mom and calf finback on their way to continue traveling through the area. These two photos so clearly show just how big the mother is compared to the calf, it's so impressive.
We got a crazy downpour while watching the finbacks but it was well worth it to stay and watch them. Whales live in the water so a little bit, or a lot more, doesn't bother them in the slightest and it doesn't seem to affect their behaviors in anyway either.
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