So with reports of great end of season whale watching, I took my mom and two family friends out for their first whale watch, and a friend out for his second. And we got a lesson in the reality that we are indeed entering the natural, wild habitat of the whales and nothing is ever a sure thing. We DID see some whales, specifically Evolution, Ravine, and Lavalier and her calf. But aside from the calf’s giving us one playful belly roll, all were basically just travelling along and not being very surface-active. Just proves that each trip is different, and one never knows what will be seen. We travelled fairly far south along Stellwagen Bank, and the visibility was so spectacular that we could see Provincetown’s Pilgrim Monument on the horizon. We just didn’t find a lot of whale activity.

Any day on the water is a good day. Any day with whales is even better! I’ve been spoiled by several spectacular whale watches this season so this was a little bit of a let down, especially as a first trip for some of my group. I am hoping to get out at least one more time before the season wraps up, and hopefully there will be some more activity to see. If not, I will just anxiously wait for next year!

Check out the photos – there are not many, but it was a beautiful day for shooting!

And so I went off to take whale watch #7.  Was happy to be joined by a friend who had never been out before, and the weather report was really very favorable.  And it was, above the water.  The water itself was quite choppy, making for an interesting ride out (better than a carnival ride).  This time, though, no fog, so the visibility was much better.  The other “hitch” to the day was that most of the activity happening on Stellwagen Bank was happening to the south, so off we went for a 2 hour ride down (usually it’s just about 1 hour from Gloucester to find activity), far enough that Provincetown’s Pilgrim Monument could be clearly seen on the horizon.

Our first whale encounter of the day turned out to be a mother and calf pair, Nile with her 4th calf.  In the distance, we could see them breaching in turn, but once we got closer, they had settled down a bit.  The activity had become more of  what was possibly a teaching moment, with Nile demonstrating how to tail slap and lob tail.  We were close enough to really get a sense of how large Nile, as an adult humpback, is.  It’s hard in photos to appreciate their size, but with one’s own eyes, it takes on a whole new dimension.  After a few minutes of this activity, both whales settled and the calf started nursing.  

While they were doing this, more splashing could be seen a little distance away, and it turned out to be a breaching minke whale!  I’ve seen this activity only once before, and Mason Weinrich from the Whale Center reported that this is really only seen a handful of times in a season.  So, this was an extra treat for all of us.  The whale appeared to be a juvenile, reported to be around 10 feet long.  It’s an interesting contrast after seeing the relative bulk of a humpback, even a calf, to see this much smaller, sleeker whale suddenly fly out of the water. Its size made the breaching a much quicker blink-and-you’ll-miss-it venture. In thinking about it more, it also is a strange sight because minke pectoral fins are small, and they remain pressed against the body during the breach, unlike a humpback which often shows some sort of pectoral flourish as it spins in the air.

After the minke settled down, we went off after more splashing, and found Nile and calf once again.  The calf had apparently learned its lessons well as it treated us to a display of breaching. Nile did not join in this time, but the calf was very energetic. After some time watching these two, it was time to turn back to the north, though we came upon another humpback before long. This one was basically surfing the waves just beneath the surface so we saw only the dorsal, but it was a frequently seen whale and so well known and identifiable: Etch-a-sketch.

The ride back to Gloucester was a good bit calmer than the ride out since we were going with the wave motion. My friend didn’t have a lot of fun with the motion, so hopefully it didn’t turn her off to whale watching forever since this was sort of a rare rough travel day.  And I know it’s just a matter of time before the tweets entice me out on the water again…

Depends on one’s definition of good :-) By mid afternoon, all I could think was to remind myself that just being out on the water was a Very Nice Thing. As soon as we passed the breakwater of Gloucester Harbor, we were enveloped in fog and visibility was dramatically reduced. I give a lot of credit to the crew who worked so hard to find us whales, even taking us far enough south that we encountered the Dolphin Fleet’s Dolphin 8! We did find two adult whales there, but were only able to see their dorsal fins. They were swimming at the surface but not showing us much. The one dive we saw from them was not “dramatic” enough for a showing of flukes.

So we made our way back towards north, stopping at a point where there had been a report of a mother and calf. Our naturalist, Laura, asked us to remain quiet as we were again enveloped in fog (the area where we found the two adults was considerably clearer) and we were going to need to listen for exhalations. After a few moments of anticipation we were indeed rewarded by the appearance of Fulcrum and her calf (already determined to be a male). Fulcrum is one of the easiest whales to ID because of the boat propellor injury to her dorsal fin. Because we had already spent so much time on our search, we couldn’t stay with these whales for long, though before we left the calf graced us with some playful surface activity, rolling over, showing his pectoral fins, and playing with seaweed. He even spyhopped a couple of times.

Our 3.5 hour whale watch became a nearly 5 hour trip, and the group of people I brought aboard – some of whom had never been whale watching before – were real troopers to be so patient and just enjoy the day. I am glad for them we did get some good whale sightings. Because I was so spoiled with the great sightings in May, I am anxious to get out again soon, hopefully with better weather on the ocean! Still, any day with whales is a good day, indeed.

Fin whale expert John Conlon was our naturalist today.  One of the best things about whale watching from Provincetown is that all of the naturalists have many seasons behind them and are very familiar with the terrain, the ecosystems, and the animals within them.  It makes a big difference, IMNSHO, to have that experience couching the experience of the whale watch.

Our first sightings of spouts came not long after we passed Race Point Light into the North Atlantic.  Because the whales we passed were “just” swimming, we kept moving onward.  And the journey was rewarded with a bevy of feeding patches.  We had been lucky all weekend to have found very “hot” areas for feeding.  It was a very fluid area as well, (no pun intended) as we would find a spot where 1-3 whales would be feeding, and it would just as quickly settle down.  But, as with today, watching around the boat in all directions we could see new feeding spot sort of pop up.  Between bird clouds and the light green water created by bubble net feeding, it was easy to see those spots even from a distance.

For the most part, we were not able to see a lot of flukes.  While there was a good deal of kick feeding (interestingly starting at times with a little chin breach that led into the kick feed), the boat was often parallel to the whales, just by chance.  Our one notable, nameable exception was Ventiska. It was 4 for 4 on seeing her this weekend, easily spotted because of her distinct dorsal fin.  While the choppier waters today meant we couldn’t see quite as deeply into the water column, we could still see quite a bit.  She and another whale spent quite a while >right< next to the boat (hence the post title), giving us great looks at their size.  Interestingly, Ventiska also has a whiter lower jaw than most, so she’s unique in more than one way.

For the whole trip we were fairly close to land, and visibility was so good that the Race Point Light buildings were easily seen.  The count at the end of the trip for “immediate vicinity” humpback whales was 29, though counting spouts and such in the distance would easily increase that number.  Ventiska was the only positive ID made during the trip.  We had at least two cow/calf pairs, and caught a minke and a fin whale passing through, as well.

I am going to miss being able to walk 5 minutes to reach a whale watch.  I’ll certainly make every effort to keep finding ways and times to go out watching again during the season, and hope to make it back to the Cape.  But I am also happy to have had such a great weekend of whale watching here in Provincetown.  My thanks go out to each of the Dolphin Fleet naturalists I saw this weekend, on boats and in town: Nancy Scaglione-Peck, Mark Gilmore, Sarah Adams-Fortune (also a right whale scientist at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies), John Conlon, and Mike Bertoldi.

Luckily, this was another one of those “I don’t know where to look!” watches where there was activity happening in virtually every direction. Our first “stop” was with some whales which were swimming somewhat casually. There were very few deeper dives so few looks at any flukes. The exception to this was one whale which kept rolling over and flipper slapping. Because of the bright sunlight, visibility was a little deeper into the water column than previously this weekend, so we could see a lot more just below the surface. Even though there were two other whales associated with the flipper slapper, that one was the only one really doing much more than just swimming. In the general vicinity there were other blows, so all told we had about 6 whales in the area. One was quickly identified as being Ventiska, thanks to her distinct dorsal.

After watching this group, we slowly moved away in the direction of some pretty visible splashing on the horizon. Just as with the previous days’ trips, we headed towards one patch of activity and then found ourselves right in the middle of a veritable feeding frenzy. Crowding at the rails was not much of a problem because we could stand still at any rail and see something fairly close by. We were treated to some chin breaching leading to kick feeding, lots of eager birds looking for leftovers, and some great lunge feeding, open mouth looks, and dragging. We were also able to spy sand lance in the water.

At one point, we had two feeding humpbacks only about 100 feet or so away from the boat. Thanks to the lighting, we could easily see the entire body of one of the whales right below the surface. Although you can get a sense of size by watching fluking dives, breaching, etc, in this case, we really got an excellent sense of the size of this whale because it was so close by and the visibility allowed a look at the entire length of the animal at once. It was truly awesome.

This was one of those days that I wish I had a digital camera because it seemed that some of the best moments came while I was changing film (like the whole body look I mentioned above). I still managed to shoot well over 200 shots, so I imagine it will take me some time to sort through them all when I get the film processed. Looking forward to that, though!

Summary for the day: in the immediate areas where the boat stopped, we saw a total of 19-23 whales. There were many others visible in the distance, a mile or more away. This was about as good a look at surface feeding as we could hope to get. Because so many of the whales appeared to be juveniles, they may not yet all be named. The naturalist announced Ventiska and Flounder as the only named whales she was able to find in the catalog today.

Oh and on the way back in for an extra little treat, we caught quick looks at a grey seal in Cape Cod Bay. It gave us a looking over and then disappeared beneath the surface. First time I had seen a seal on a Provincetown whale watch (saw one once from a New England Aquarium whale watch).

Our trip today took us a little farther away from shore as Race Point was out of sight. But once we found whales, it was rather like hitting the jackpot! We found Ventiska again, hanging out with a mother and calf. We got good looks at them, and could see several other spouts in the vicinity, though the whales at this spot were not being especially active at the surface.

Eventually we did move on towards some big splashes in the distance. On the way, we passed a whale off in the distance who was going some chin breaching. And we were clearly headed towards the bait as we had a pair of humpbacks swimming parallel to the boat and moving at about the same rate of speed. Once we arrived at the center of activity, it became a matter of not knowing where to look. We might be looking out at 3:00 and seeing a bubble net when Mark would announce something happening right next to the boat at 9:00. There was lunging, open mouth feeding, kick feeding, considerable bird activity (including a couple seen standing on the head of a dragging humpback), and bubble nets. Since we came to this area towards the end of our time out on Stellwagen, we couldn’t stay terribly long though the captain did extend our visit by a little bit. It was hard to tear away with all of the activity. The boat had to go somewhat slowly for a while because there were just spouts and whales everywhere.

For the trip summary, Mark reported on several whales he was able to ID from his photos, including Ventiska, Ganesh and calf, Abrasion, Dome, Putter, Nazca, and Cosmos. I look forward to getting my own shots back (over 125) to see how many of these flukes I was able to get. All told for whales in the immediate area only, the trip’s total was 23-25. There were so many spouts in the distance, including for a large part of the trip back in, that I can’t venture a good guess for how many whales were seen even just distantly. We also saw 1-2 fin whales and a minke moving through. It was a terrific trip!

Oh, and I noticed as we passed Herring Cove that there was seemingly not a trace of the previous day’s activity with the dead fin whale. All of the equipment and staging area were gone so it seems the crew was able to complete their work yesterday.

The peril of a first in the day whale watch is the challenge of finding where the whales went overnight. We did not have any problem finding whales today. In fact, we found them so quickly that we were not even far off the Cape. The buildings at Race Point Light were easily visible throughout the trip. Our first sighting opportunity landed us amidst 10-12 humpback whales, including at least 2 cow/calf pairs, doing very active surface feeding. We saw some kick feeding and some great open mouth lunge feeding with wide open looks. Not yet eating solid food, we saw some breaching from one of the calves, too. They seem to know how to entertain themselves while mom is busy feeding. After this tremendous “show” for about half an hour, the bait fish seemed to have dispersed because the whales quieted right down. We could still see numerous spouts around, but the dramatic surface activity was much less.

We searched for some more whales and got quick looks at a few. Much to my delight, one of these whales was Salt! She may be the grande dame of Stellwagen Bank, but in my 50+ trips out, this is the very first time I had seen her. She was travelling with Cardhu but again they were being sort of quiet, just hanging out at the surface. We never even got a look at Salt’s flukes (good thing she has that distinctive dorsal fin!).

All told, we had about 19-21 humpback whales today and one distant look at a fin whale travelling through. Named whales ID’d during the trip included Salt, Cardhu, Lavaliere, Ventiska, and Ganesh. I am already eagerly looking forward to my next trip out. Since I am still shooting film, I won’t have photos to put up for a couple of days, but will do so as soon as I have them.

Being on a Monday with school still in session, the boat was refreshingly not crowded. It was also a little chilly out on the water, but we were mostly prepared for that. There were a few people on the boat in shorts and without jackets, so I think they mostly stayed in one of the cabins.

Since there was still a very high density of right whales in Cape Cod Bay, the boat headed more to the north end of Stellwagen Bank in order to give the right whales some space. And again, since it was early in the season, there weren’t a lot of other whales around yet. Caught a passing look at a fin whale. Some minkes popped up around us as well. Our best look at a humpback was courtesy of Giraffe. She seemed to be doing some just below the surface feeding as we did get to see a bubble cloud. Got a couple of good looks at the flukes, too. There was another humpback whale in the distance but we didn’t close enough for a solid ID.

As usual, any whale watch where a whale is seen is a good day. But, I am also looking forward to more trips, hopefully, through the season as more humpbacks return to Stellwagen Bank.

So, we met in Gloucester on a sunny and gorgeous day. We did not see an especially large number of whales, not the 15+ from the week before, but with different behaviors. We spent about 45 minutes watching Jabiru flipper slapping. According to the Whale Center naturalists on board, this was a protracted display; they don’t usually carry on for this long. Did make for some nice photography!

We eventually left Jabiru because some breaching could be seen off in the distance, and who doesn’t like to see that? As we got closer, the breaching fell off, but we found ourselves amongst Tornado and Owl and their calves. The moms were apparently doing some feeding while the calves swam around. Owl gave us some good views of the deep scarring on her body, left over from a bad entanglement. It’s testament to the both the resilience of these animals to recover and the dangers they face in their own waters because of human activity.

This was a terrific whale watch to have to end my own season. I didn’t out as much as I had hoped, but did better that I thought I might. In this summer of screamingly high fuel prices, a 2.5 hour drive each way on top of the increased whale watch cost due to fuel makes for a fairly expensive trip. Every single one was worth it, and I already cannot wait for the 2009 season to begin.

Again I went to Gloucester to go out with Capt. Bill and Sons. For a youngster’s first whale watch, I really didn’t want to deal with the crowded Aquarium boats even though it is a shorter drive. The trip from Gloucester was certainly well attended but the people density is still a lot better for views than on larger boats, IMNSHO. It was a beautiful day with terrific visibillity; we could see the Boston skyline on our way out.

First sighting was a juvenile whale which did a tremendous display of tail breaching. I am not sure the nephew could really appreciate it, being his first time out and all, but I was pretty excited about it! We found a number of other humpback whales as well, and got a good look at a fin whale. The identified humpbacks included Crown and her calf, Etch a Sketch, Percussion and Infinity.

All told, the final count as presented by the naturalists included over a dozen humpback whales, a couple of fin whales, and several minkes. Not surprisingly, the nephew fell asleep on the way home, but he seemed to have a good day. He took his own photos with the disposable cameras I brought for him, got to see the humpback skeleton at the Whale Center of New England, and can now say he has had the same experience as his two older brothers.