Sun Sept 7 – Whale Watching

What a wonderful way to wrap up our weekend trips aboard the Viking Starship yesterday! The bunker
was running and we found dolphins almost immediately after leaving the inlet. These dolphins,
Tamanend’s bottlenose, were actively feeding on the bunker which surrounded our vessel, affording
passengers excellent views of the action. We traveled along with the dolphins, a pod of 50-70, for a
while before moving around the Point and heading west along the shore. Here we searched for larger
cetaceans, mainly some of the juvenile humpback whales encountered on Saturday’s trip. At first, no
whales could be found, but the sights of spinner sharks spiraling out of the water in a school of bunker,
made the searching worthwhile. We continued on, eventually finding a young humpback west of the
previous day’s sightings. As we waited for this small whale to surface, we were treated to the music of
bunker splashing and occasional surprise lunges by the whale as it fed on the hearty bunker. Bottlenose
dolphins were also in the area and the rain, which persisted earlier in the trip, let off a bit making for a
magical encounter. The humpback, which was in shallow water (30-38 feet), eventually lifted its tail
flukes out of the water on a terminal dive, and we said goodbye to the whale to head back to the dock.
Well, we tried anyway, because not long after, we saw a minke whale ahead of the boat feeding on
another school of fish. We stopped and watched as this young minke surfaced around the bow with a
second humpback popping up behind it! After spending some time here, we continued home,
encountering constant schools of bunker, pods of bottlenose, and occasional shark (of unidentified
species) sightings. As if that were not enough, the sun came out enough to not only cast incredible
shades of light during sunset, but created a rainbow that ran clear across the sky as we returned to port.
We could not have asked for a better way to wrap up the trip and (almost) the season. Thank you to all
the passengers who joined us onboard (and those following us online) this season. It sure was a magical
one.
2 humpback whales, juveniles
1-2 minke whales
120-160 Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins
1-2 spinner sharks
2 additional sharks of unidentified species
60-80 Cory’s shearwaters
8-12 great shearwaters
50-60 Wilson’s storm petrels