Today on the Aurora we headed down to the southwestern corner of Stellwagen (our new favorite place!!). We were treated to sightings of about 20 humpback whales, 4-5 minke whales, 3-4 gray seals and lots of diving northern gannets. We spent some time with a large group of 7 (Perseid, Falcon, Jabiru, Eruption, Aerospace and 3 unknowns).

Bubble clouds from feeding right whales

The group was deep feeding, which included one surfacing right by the port bow. There were several groups of singles and doubles all around us as well. We spent some time with a mom and calf, mom didn’t fluke, so no id as of yet. We finished our trip with some great close feeding bouts of Zeppelin and Fracture, who were doing some bubble cloud feeding. Zeppelin has an amazing feeding strategy of surfacing through the bubble cloud and rolling onto her side.

Fracture and Zeppelin surfacing through a bubble cloud with Zeppelin rolling onto her side

To those long in the industry, you may recognize those names. Apparently there was a season back in the 90s (before my time) where Zeppelin & Fracture were the only 2 whales on Stellwagen Bank, and many a whale trips were saved by this pair.

Gray seals

-- Ulrika