Sun Aug 23 – Whale Watching
Another successful trip: humpback and minke whales!
We couldn’t ask for better conditions! A relatively calm day at sea with unlimited visibility made searching for blows easier than most days. Although it took a while to get to where we’d been seeing whales recently, we did find them. We found a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) first seen in 2004 by our colleagues out of Rhode Island and a humpback whale named Tobin were busy searching for prey and prersumptively feeding. The water was ~140′ deep and the prey (probably sand eels) was at depths of 75-80 feet. Their humpback dive times were generally long (7-16 minutes). Interestingly, within about 5 minutes of finding our first humpback we found a minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) with its characteristic shatrp snout and white patches on pectoral flippers). The numbers of pelagic birds, particularly the Wilson’s storm petrels were among the highest of this season. A successful trip with a new humpback mfor our catalog. CRESLI and Viking Fleet are proud partners of WhaleSENSE, a voluntary program that promotes responsible and ethical whale watching. We never chase or separate the whales and remain out of gear when they are nearby. All appropriate protocols were followed and no cetaceans were disturbed. Our thanks to the Viking Fleet crew and the CRESLI crew.
- 1 minke whale
- 2 humpback whales
- 1300 Wilson’s storm petrels
- 80 Great shearwaters
- 20 Cory’s shearwaters
- 1 Sooty shearwater
- 1 Manx shearwater
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