This afternoon we headed up to Jeffrey’s Ledge in search of whales. Just as we were passing Thatcher’s Island we spotted to blows just a quarter of a mile to our right. These whales turned out to be Orbit and Slingshot.

Valley's fluke

This pair of humpbacks was traveling together at the surface, probably doing some subsurface feeding after diving down. It was easy to tell these two whales apart at the surface because Slingshot has some very white scarring along it’s back and dorsal fin. This could possibly be from an entanglement.

Valley's tailstock

Eventually, we saw a couple of different blows in the distance so we decided to see what else was in the area. It turned out to be another pair of humpbacks, this time it was Valley and Sickle. I recognized Valley almost immediately due to her lack of dorsal fin.

Valley and Sickle dorsal fins (or lack thereof)

These two were traveling very slowly at the surface. Whenever Valley would take a dive, she would fluke almost in slow motion. It looked like a lot of effort to bring her thick tail-stock into the air. This pair was great to watch, and with our last looks they started moving close to our boat! They travelled slowly right off our starboard side. There was another humpback sighted in the distance at the end of the trip, but we had to head back to Boston. Looks like Jeffrey’s Ledge has been a popular spot recently!

— Annie G