This morning on board the Sanctuary with Captain Tom we headed out towards the southwest corner of Stellwagen Bank. The seas were like glass today which always makes for a beautiful whale watch, we were able to spot huge flocks of Wilson’s storm-petrels resting at the surface and got beautiful reflections of their tiny bodies on the still waters.
Apart from the awesome seabirds, we spotted several fin whales and two humpback whales. We spent most of our trip with Citation, a new whale for me, who was doing some fluking dives and rather long 5 minute dives but she wasn’t moving very much and we got some great looks at this animal.
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| Citation |
As we left we spotted a second humpback whale who was logging but I recognized this whale’s dorsal fin, it was Cajun! Cajun is a real favorite out here on Stellwagen Bank and we’re very excited to have her back in our waters again.
This afternoon on the 2pm trip we headed out towards the southwest corner again but didn’t spot a thing, not even a bird! So we continued east and spotted a blow just south of the south east corner. We’d obviously come to the right place because we started to see blows in every direction. In this area we spotted about 8 humpback whales and two fin whales.
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| Sanchal |
The humpbacks were widely scattered and not spending a lot of time at the surface so we were only able to identify Sanchal, Northstar, Nile, and possibly Tongs. Sanchal gave us some great flipper slapping and another whale did a big chin slap as a surprise off in the distance. It was a great afternoon to beat the heat and head offshore to enjoy the company of these amazing animals.
—Tegan and Maddy
We had a beautiful day out on the water today with calm seas. We cruised along down the back towards the southwest corner of Stellwagen and found 3 blue sharks along the way. 3! One of the sharks we got nice look at through the clear water and it was a unique site to see that many. Once we were closer to Provincetown we found two humpbacks in the area. One of them was being a little elusive so we turned to the second humpback and were able to later identify her as Cajun!
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| Cajun returns! |
She is a newly-sighted whale for the season and hopefully the latest whale sightings page will be updated to proudly display her name. Cajun is a very popular female whale in our population and has been a mother in the past, so it was wonderful seeing her today! She was definitely resting at one point and taking longer dives when she went below the surface.
—Laura Cupicha and Cassie Murray
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