9 am trip - Tammy
We had perfect weather offshore this morning; warm, sunny and a light breeze out of the south west. Most of our morning was spent with a humpback whale named Rapier and her 2015 calf.
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| Rapier's tail pattern |
Rapier showed us some kick-feeding behavior. This is where a whale will use its tail to stun small bait fish. We saw Rapier kick feed twice and on one of those occasions she completed a huge feeding lunge right off the stern!
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| Rapier preparing to kick |
We also had lots of great views of Rapier's calf, who stuck pretty close by mom this morning.
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| Rapier's calf traveling |
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| Rapier (left) and calf (right) |
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| Rapier (front) and calf (back) |
We had several brief, but exciting sightings at the end of our trip. Quick looks at a finback whale and a minke whale gave us a three-species trip! We had also had looks at two additional humpback whales, including Rapier's 2009 calf.
2 pm trip - Tammy
Quite a few humpback whales moved into the mid-Stellwagen Bank area this afternoon. We sighted 13-16 humpbacks on this trip! Whales were traveling alone, and in groups of 2, 3 and 4. We focused on a group of four whales that included Pele, Milkweed, Cajun and her calf. Interestingly, these whales have been seen together in previous years (2010, 2011 and possibly others).
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| group of four humpback whales |
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| Cajun (left) and her calf (right) |
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| Pele's ventral tail |
We had views of other groups of whales and whales traveling solo, including a whale with a very dark tail named Degree. Degree was born in 2008 to a whale named Apostrophee.
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| Degree's tail |
A nearby active humpback whale caught our attention as it breached or jumped out of the water. This unidentified humpback breached several times and for most of us, was probably the highlight of this afternoon's trip!
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| humpback whale breaching |
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