Greetings Whale Whisperers,

For our 11AM trip aboard the Asteria, we joined Captain Deb in an enthusiastic search for whales on the Southwest corner of Stellwagen Bank.  The skies remained clear as they had for the past several whale watches, but the 2-3’ swells cast upon us by the ocean tested the mettle of our passengers.  As we were within sight of Provincetown, we could see a smattering of several blows straddling the horizon!  We made our way towards what appeared to be a breaching humpback in the distance, but that activity was short-lived.  We instead found ourselves on two individual finback whales that came close to our vessel!  The enormity of these megafauna was realized as one of them crossed our bow.  The other cetacean began side-lunge feeding to our starboard, briefly revealing part of a rarely seen finback fluke!  Passengers were gifted glimpses of chevron patterns unique to finback whales. 

Once the “finners” travelled away from the vessel we ventured toward a pair of humpback whales who were slowly surface feeding!  Their behavior was evident by the green clouds boiling the water’s surface, coupled with the tips of their rostrums peeking out of the ocean.  Deb brought us to a third humpback whale who was kind enough to show us a beautiful fluke.  This whale is known to us all as Trance, a repeated sighting for the season.  We also caught a look of a somewhat small humpback travelling slowly on the surface, and witnessed a brief head-breach from another humpback whale!  As we returned to Boston, there were still many blows further out in the east.

On our 5pm trip, we accompanied Captain Tim on our second excursion to the Southwest corner.  Our return to “Whale City” was triumphant, as the vast number of blows from humpbacks caused a near sensory overload!  Initially we watched Rapier and her calf gracefully milling around the surface of a calm sea.  Then we happened upon a trio of whales, two of which were a mother and calf pair!  Jabiru valiantly escorted the mother and her new calf around the boat as the calf curiously rose its head up out of the water!  The calf was especially vocal, and Laura justly compared the trumpeting blow of the juvenile to the vocalization of a baby elephant!  We soon found ourselves on a lone humpback whale that was recognizable from a sighting earlier this week for its orca rake scars on its dorsal fin.  We discovered at this point in the trip that we were being followed by harbor seals and grey seals, and we felt that their interest in us rivaled our interest in the whales!  We also managed to sight several separate humpbacks in the distance and captured a photo of yet another fluke!  These mammalian sightings brought an exciting conclusion to the day, and we have high hopes for the days to come.

We hope for everyone to have a euphoric weekend, and we look forward to sharing more of our maritime missions!

Love and Peace,

Rich and Laura C

Rapier (back) and calf (front). Rich Dolan, BHC naturalist 

15BH16 fluking. Rich Dolan, BHC naturalist