What a beautiful day it was on the bank! On board the Asteria for the 10am whale watch, we headed towards the southwest corner of the bank. Our trip started out with a surprise sighting of an ocean sunfish or Mola mola.

Mola mola, the largest bony fish in the sea

As we kept traveling toward the bank, we had another non-cetacean sighting. A little grey seal popped up at the surface, but quickly dove down.

Group of humpback whales swimming

When we arrived at the bank we found a large group of humpback whales. It was Nile, her 2014 calf, Pele, Eruption, and Storm! The group of 5 was fluking and taking short 3-4 minute dives.

Nile and her calf

The trio and Nile and her calf split once during the trip, but after 15 minutes or so they all joined together again for more feeding! The flat calm waters on the bank today made our sightings even better.

You can see the humpback's white flukes under the flat calm waters

— Hannah, Grace, and Jess

***

On today’s 12pm trip aboard the Aurora, we headed to the SW corner to find the group of 5 our 10am found – Eruption, Storm, Pele, Nile and her calf. At first the whales were separated, with Nile and her calf (see photo) traveling a short distance away from the trio – Pele, Storm, and Eruption.

Nile and her calf

At one point, all 5 whales joined up! This was a brief join before the group split up again, and Nile and her calf began to log while the trio were subsurface feeding. We saw lots of coordinated diving of this trio – including a synchronized dive of Storm and Eruption (see photo).

Synchronized dive by Eruption and Storm

What was interesting today  with the flat calm conditions we could see any disturbance in the water, and throughout the trip  we saw faint trails of bubbles while the whales were down on their dives – perhaps bubble feeding deep below the surface, or as our Captain Chip thought, maybe stirring up the gravel as they were bottom feeding along Stellwagen Bank.

The group crosses paths

On our last looks the trio passed by Nile and calf but did not join up again (see photo of the groups crossing paths), and we got wonderful close to boat looks of Storm (see photo of Storm’s fluke), Pele, and Eruption.

Storm's fluke

A wonderful day on the water!

— Laura