On our first trip of the day on the Cetacea, we headed to the SW corner to find 1 fin whale, and 6-7 humpbacks in the area. We first spotted Freckles and another humpback in the distance who quickly parted ways. Freckles was diving quickly and surfacing very shortly, so we spent time with another humpback in the area, Blackhole.

Blackhole

Blackhole did not fluke for us, but she is easily identifiable from her “Hershey kiss” shaped dorsal fin and scar on her flank (see photo).  She bobbed up at the surface a few times, perhaps just coming up from doing some subsurface feeding.

Comb jellies

For our final looks, we headed towards Nile and calf who were with some of our fellow whale watching boats – on the way we passed two more humpbacks in the distance, and also saw tons of comb jellies in the water! (see photo). We observed Nile’s calf nursing, and then headed home for our afternoon trip.

Storm's fluke

On our afternoon 1:30 trip, we headed back to the same area, this time finding Storm (see photo of fluke), Pele, and Eruption together. This trio was traveling slowly/logging (resting), and then began to pick up steam making coordinated turns and dives - characteristic of subsurface/deep feeding behavior (see photo).

Group photo

We also spotted a fourth humpback Pitcher in the distance, who came near but didn’t join up with the group.

A rainbow!

We wrapped up with some great looks in the calm seas – included some looks at a “rainbow” blow (see photo). It was so calm that we could see the trio of Pele, Storm, and Eruption on the radar (see photo).

Green blips are whales on the radar (don't miss the reflection!)

Another great day on the water!

— Laura