This morning on board the Asteria we headed out to the SW corner of Stellwagen Bank. The water was calm and we had mostly clear skies with nearly perfect visibility. The first sign of a whale was a huge breach a mile away on the horizon!

Gulp!

We made our way in that direction and found Dyad, a female humpback whale! We watched Dyad travelling at the surface for most of the trip. She is a very tricky whale and likes to take fluke-up dives and almost immediately resurface!

While we were watching Dyad traveling, we saw another blow in the distance as well as some splashing. We decided to investigate this animal and made our way a mile closer to the tip of Cape Cod.

Rapier kick feeding

This individual was exhibiting some strange behavior. It would lift and twist its tail and then lightly slap it on the surface of the water, similar to kick-feeding except a little more lazy. The whale would do 3 or 4 slaps in a semi-circle, duck down underneath the surface, blow a single blast of bubbles and then resurface with a HUGE mouthful of fish and water!

Rapier with a mouthful

It was a little difficult to ID this whale because it had a very droopy tail and never fluked. After the trip we figured out that it was Rapier! It was a beautiful day overall, except for when we entered the harbor and it randomly started to pour!

Have a great day!

Annie, Kirsten and Kira

This morning on the 9am whale watch onboard the Cetacea our captain decided to mix things up a little and we headed more towards the south rather than to our usual spot on the northwest corner.

Dyad swims among fishing gear

A bird is dwarfed next to Dyad's fluke

We reached the western edge of the bank and found a female humpback whale named Dyad taking short dives. Dyad was doing an interesting diving behavior where she would take a long dive, surface once, fluke and then come up a few seconds later, spending a little while at the surface. Hopefully she was finding a lot of food on those long dives. Female whales must store huge amounts of fat to cope with the energetic strain of pregnancy and nursing. Dyad, like any of the females we see this summer, could be preparing to breed or give birth on the wintering grounds in the coming months. We’ll just have to wait and see!

Tongs and calf

Nearby to Dyad we spotted two whales, likely a mother and calf, logging or resting at the surface. We managed to get a quick look at the end of the trip and identified Tongs and her 2014 calf. Tongs and calf were actually some of the very first whales that I saw this season back in April and that calf has grown! We also got an awesome look at a Mola mola or ocean sunfish, the largest boney fish species, on the way home due to the perfect flat water conditions.

Mola mola!

This afternoon on the 1:30 whale watch we headed out to the western edge of the bank and found Tongs and her calf. We had seen these two whales resting in the same area earlier in the day but it looked like rest time was coming to an end. Tongs would take longish dives but also hang just under the water only visible by her pectoral fins glowing green through our phytoplankton laden water.

Tong's calf rolling

The calf was definitely feeling playful and we got a lot of tail slashes and bubble blowing. Our favorite was when the calf did a lot of rolling, especially when it spent some time swimming upside down with it’s belly exposed. This position allows us to get photographs which can help to identify sex. Otherwise we’d have to wait a few years and see if this whale turns up with a baby. It was a beautiful day and the flat water conditions made it a wonderful day for whale watching.

— Tegan

***

Today on board the Asteria we headed out to the middle of Stellwagen Bank where we had many unique sightings. On our search for whales we spotted a loggerhead turtle! I had never seen a turtle on a whale watch so it was really exciting when we spotted this individual.

Blue shark!!

After this quick look, we spent some time with a lone female humpback named Dyad. Dyad was taking short 3 minute dives. While watching this whale, we had a surprise sighting of an awesome blue shark. It swam right alongside our starboard sight!

Tongs and her newest calf

After a while, we decided to move to a different area where other whales had been sighted earlier in the day. On our way to this new area, we spotted a giant mola mola or ocean sunfish! We finished up our trip with Tongs and her 2014 calf travelling very slowly at the surface. The calf stayed at the surface the entire time we watched this pair, while the mother took short, non-fluking dives every few minutes. It was a beautiful, flat-calm day with so many different species!!!


— Annie G.

***

Large finback, twice the length of a humpback!

On the 12pm whale watch aboard the Aurora today, Captain Jeff headed straight to the northwest corner of Stellwagen Bank. When we first arrived – we found two different species! A large fin whale, and two familiar humpbacks – Northstar and Hippocampus. Though the fin whale was far, we could really see the difference in size- the fin whale is about twice the length of the humpback whales.
 

Blowholes

We spent our trip with Northstar and Hippocampus, who were traveling slowly at first. Then after a few surfacings, Hippocampus did a flipper flare underwater, Northstar trumpeted (i.e. made a loud-pitched exhalation), and then Hippocampus suddenly dove very deep.

Hippocampus and Northstar

This seemed to begin to prompt some different behaviors, because shortly after Hippocampus began flipper slapping at the surface! We watch this whale slap several times at the surface, and Northstar at one point rolled on his side and exposed one of his flippers (but didn’t slap – you can see it in the photo).

Hippocampus comes in close for a close-up

After that the pair began some subsurface feed, and near the end of the trip we began to see small ripples of bubbles popping up at the surface while the whales remained below. It was exciting to slowly see the anticipation building as a faint bubble net appeared near our boat, and then suddenly the two surfaced right next to us!

Northstar fluke

It wasn’t clear as to whether the whales were curious to the boat/our jet wash, or just happening to feed under our boat – but either way it was a great way to end our trip! Capt. Jeff even squeezed in a little more time for a few extra last looks of this exciting behavior.

Another great day on the water!

— Laura

This morning on board the Asteria for our 10am whale watch, Hippocampus and Northstar were very active! They spent lots of time diving and were very likely subsurface feeding.

Hippocampus and Northstar

Digital tags have shown that humpbacks pursue sand lance at depth by rubbing the sides of their bodies into the sandy sea floor of Stellwagen Bank forcing hundreds, even thousands of sand lance out of hiding and into the water column. These humpbacks are then able to capture mouthfuls of these tiny fish one after another.  While we can only speculate as to what this duo was actually doing beneath the ocean’s surface, something was keeping them down and it was most likely their lunch!

Northstar's injury update

For those of you who are looking for an update on Northstar’s recent injury, here is a close up from today of the wound on the right side of his back which appears to be healing well. From the looks of it, the wound area is receding as healthy tissue grows forward. As long as we see Northstar regularly, we will continue to provide as much information as we can about the progress of this healing process!

— Tasia

***

Today on the Aurora for the 12 pm whale watch, we travelled out to the northwest corner of Stellwagen Bank. The beautiful sunny weather, light wind, and calm seas gave us wonderful conditions for searching for whales. It always amazes me that we head out to these areas and are able to spot whales so easily.

Northstar's fluke

We quickly spotted two exhalations in the distance that turned out to be our dynamic duo, Hippocampus and Northstar! We haven’t seen much apparent feeding behavior from these two humpbacks over the past week but their erratic dive times and pattern of travel looked like they were searching for food. We did spot a bubble cloud which hopefully means that searching has been fruitful. Passengers really enjoyed seeing this unique feeding behavior!

Throughout the whale watch, we passed an abundance of boat traffic, including a large LNG ship, a tuna boat, the Massachusetts Environmental Police, many recreational boats, and the Auk, Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary’s research vessel. As ever this made us mindful that Stellwagen Bank is a shared environment and it’s important to balance all of its diverse and important uses in management and sustainable future.

—Tegan & Kirsten

***

A large finback whale

This morning we headed out to the southwest corner of Stellwagen. We decided to travel south to switch things up and it sure paid off! Upon reaching the edge of the bank we found a fast moving finback whale who was taking nice short dives of 2-3 minutes. This individual was a particularly large finback.

Nile's fluke

When the finwhale was down on a dive, we continued spotting and found 2 logging humpbacks in the distance. We travelled their way to investigate and we found Nile and her 2014 calf! Throughout the last 15 minutes of our trip, Nile and her calf stayed resting at the surface. Just as we were wrapping-up, the pair took a dive, exposing Nile’s beautiful type 4 fluke!

A waterfall streaming off Nile's fluke

We thought our trip had ended, but on our way back to Boston, maybe 20 minutes off the bank, we saw 2 MORE humpbacks! Luckily we were at the right angle for a photo and were able ID them as Tongs and her 2014 calf.

Dyad

This afternoon, we headed out once again to the SW corner of Stellwagen Bank. We had nearly perfect whale sighting conditions with glassy, flat-calm seas with sunny warm temperatures. After a few minutes of searching on the bank, we easily spotted a whale in the distance. It turned out to be a female humpback whale named Dyad! She was taking 2-4 minute dives and consistently fluking.

Dyad

We even saw evidence of some bubble cloud feeding later in the trip. A few times, Dyad would fluke as though she was taking a deep dive, and then would pop up moments later at the surface. It was a beautiful day for a whale watch with a beautiful whale to boot.

— Hannah & Annie G.