Hello everybody! We had our first humpback whale sighting today and I'm just very excited to tell you all about it!! We got word on our 2:00 pm departure that a fisherman had spotted a humpback in the Grand Manan Chanel off Nancy's Head, Campobello Island so our captain and owner, John, decided to take the "bait" and were we ever happy that he did. We didn't have to search very hard but we did have to be patient as "she" was staying under for almost 15 minutes some dives. We got a few great looks at the humpback whale, one time John spotted "her" first on his fish finder as she was directly underneath us...100 feet down! Humpbacks are individually ID'ed by the pigmentation on the underside of their flukes and part of the data we collect at Quoddy is I photograph each individual humpback and we do send the photos down to Provincetown Centre for Coastal Studies for identification and to participate in their research. The photos have been sent and as soon as I hear who this humpback whale is I will let you know!
The dorsal fins on humpbacks are all unique as well. I thought I would include this today to show you. You can also see the long white pectoral flippers (which we got to see being waved around and slapped in the surface of the water at a distance today) glowing green under the water.
On our morning and our evening departures we also saw many minke whales in Head Harbour Passage. This photo was taken on our 10:00 am trip.
The video was shot on our evening trip. We were waiting for a minke whale to surface and he came up not 15 feet from our boat!
I don't want to finish today without mentioning a very special sight we saw on both last night and tonight's departures. Just off Adams Island we had a lunge feeding fin whale! It appeared to be the same individual (looking at the dorsal fin) each night. I didn't get any photos, it was just so unpredictable but amazing to see.
Thanks so much for checking in today. Check back to see who our first humpback whale is....I can't wait to hear! Cheers.
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