Yesterday on board the Cetacea for the 9am whale watch, Captain Jimmy lead us to the southwest corner of Stellwagen Bank to search for whales in near perfect conditions with great visibility.

Tornado and Jabiru diving

Owl's calf's fluke

It's a party now.

Once arriving on the bank we found scattered humpback exhalations. We maneuvered slowly through the area to approach a large group of humpbacks. The group of 6 was taking short dives, about 3-5 minutes. It was Milkweed, Tornado, Owl and calf, and Jabiru and calf. During our time with this group, Nile and Perseid came into the area, joined with the group for a few dives, and then continued on their own. While all the adults and moms dove, the 2 calves kept passengers entertained, rolling about on the surface. We even saw 2 spy hops from Owl's 2015 calf! 

Measles in the pea soup fog

As we were exiting the harbor for our 2pm trip, we noticed a very large thick fog bank had rolled in. After communicating with our sister vessels and fellow whale watching boats and searching through the thick fog, we came across 2 slow swimming humpbacks. It was Measles and her 2015 calf! I spent a good amount of time with Measles last season, so I was happy to see her as a mom this year.

Whale watching in the fog is very different than without fog. Passengers had to use their other senses to help locate the whales. Our new summer interns on board, Maddy and Ann, were getting great practice listening for whale exhalations. Listening intently paid off as we were able to get lots of great looks at this mom and calf duo, even when we'd thought we'd lost them only 50 yards off the boat. 

— Hannah Pittore