|
Sightings & News
August 28, 2010
The last couple of weeks have been very exciting around here! It started on August 17th, when we saw about 25 Pilot Whales! These toothed whales travel in pods, love to eat squid, and are pretty rare to see. In fact, the last time we saw them was August 13, 2008, almost two years ago to the day. The fact that Pilot Whales were in the area meant that there were lots of squid around, but we were not expecting another squid eating species to show up the very next day...a SPERM WHALE!! What we assumed was a fluking Humpback in the distance turned out to be a Sperm whale as we got closer to it; it was pretty unbelievable! We've been whale watching for thirty years, and have only seen a Sperm whale once, in 1995! None of the crew that was on the boat for this year's sighting were on the boat that day back then, so it was very special. We ended up seeing one or two(!) Sperm whales on our trips for the next two days as well, and it was wonderful that so many passengers were treated to this once in a lifetime experience. Sperm whales are quite unique to see; for one, they have a single blowhole that's situated very close to the front of their head and off to one side, making for a sideways spout! Another difference from more commonly seen species is that their average dive time tends to be much longer. We were very fortunate to get great looks on our trips as they stayed at the surface for a long time!
After the Sperm and Pilot whale excitement, we had a huge Nor'easter that kept us in port for several days. But in the last couple of days since we've been back out, it's been awesome again! On Friday we saw about 20 rare Sei whales, 200 Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins, several Fin whales, Harbor seals, Blue sharks, and a juvenile Humpback! The weather looks warm and perfect again for the foreseeable future...we hope you can join us for an adventure out on Jeffreys Ledge, you really never know what you may get to see!
August 15, 2010
One word sums up the last couple of weeks here...busy! We've been blessed with near perfect weather, so we've had lots of enthusiastic passengers out on every trip, and the whales have been keeping us busy watching them. We've never before had the chance to say that Northern Right Whales have been one of our most frequent sightings recently; we saw at least one on 72% of last week's trips! I won't go on and on again about how special it is to see one of these whales (see August 1st's post for that!), but it's been wonderful sharing the experience with so many people. It's entirely possible to go whale watching for years and not see a single Northern Right Whale; it's been very exciting to hear so many people say, "this was my first whale watch ever, and I got to see a Right Whale!" While not as unusual a sighting for us as a Right Whale, we have been seeing a lot more Blue Sharks than we usually do. These sharks average 6-10 feet in length and eat small fish and squid. We love seeing a great variety of marine life out on Jeffreys Ledge, and it's very cool to see those fins poking out above the surface of the water! Shark species in general are misunderstood, and Blue Sharks are no exception. We often have passengers nervous or fearful about seeing a shark; in reality, humans are Blue Sharks' biggest predator. Between 10-20 million of them are killed every year as a result of fishing, mostly as by-catch, which is when they are caught and killed by accident when fishermen are trying to catch other species. Blue Sharks are not known as an aggressive species; in fact, they are not a species we can often "watch" as they tend to dart away under the surface as soon as a boat tries to approach! We hope you can join us soon to see some of these fascinating animals in their natual habitat; you never know what you may get to see!
August 1, 2010
It continues to be another great summer out on Jeffreys Ledge...and we've been traveling every inch of it, as most of the whale activity over the last couple of weeks has been fairly far offshore. Our number one priority is giving our passengers the best possible trip on that day, even if that means spending the extra time and money on fuel to travel a far distance. As a result, we've had several trips where we've gotten back to the dock a little late, but the time spent with the whales made it worth it! One highlight of the last couple of weeks was getting to see a mom and calf Northern Right Whale! These whales are extremely endangered (they got their name by being considered the "right" whale to hunt back in the whaling days,) and only about 400 exist in the world today. Even rarer than an adult Right Whale sighting is getting to see a calf; only 19 Northern Right Whale calves were born this year! Two of our crew members, naturalist Melanie and captain Jonathan, spend their winters on the coast of South Carolina, one of the areas where Right Whales migrate in the colder months, where they're part of a research team. They identified the mom we saw as #1241, nicknamed "Bugs." They saw her and her calf this past winter down south; it's great knowing that they both survived the journey north to the summer feeding grounds! We've also seen Humpback, Fin, and Minke whales, and lots of Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins, which are always a big crowd pleaser! Several Blue and Basking Sharks have been spotted recently...despite the fact that they've been seen not too far south of us in Massachusetts, we've actually never seen a Great White Shark in all of our years whale watching out on Jeffreys Ledge. Great Whites love warm water to swim in and seals to eat, both of which are in abundance in many Massachusetts bays and coves, but not so much out in the deep water where the whales are. But we all have our fingers crossed; we think it'd be pretty cool to see a Great White! As always, our crew continues to do an awesome job updating our Facebook page daily, complete with photos...thank you to all of our "Facebook friends" who have such nice things to say and pictures to share about the trips you've been out on this year!
July 17, 2010
We've had another couple of weeks of great whale watching! As is typical for our New England summers, the weather likes to keep us on our toes...we've had to deal with some foggy mornings that were supposed to be clear, and on the flip side we've had multiple afternoons with nothing but sunshine when the weathermen were calling for thunderstorms. But to answer a question we get asked often, the weather doesn't affect the number of whales in the area, since being mammals, they still have to come to the surface to breathe air every few minutes. And there have been lots in the area! We pride ourselves on going the extra mile (both literally and figuratively!) in order to give our passengers the best trip possible, and we've been doing that a lot lately. For example, this past Thursday morning we traveled far down south and were rewarded by finding a total of eight Humpbacks, about 45 Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins, Minke whales, a Fin whale, and lots of Bluefin tuna. That afternoon we were the only boat in the area that decided to steam out to the far northern end of Jeffreys Ledge, where multiple whales had been reported earlier in the day. As a result, our passengers were treated to the sight of multiple Humpbacks feeding, and even got to see lobtailing and breaching! For more details and photos from each of our trips, please visit our Facebook page. Our naturalists and crew do a great job of updating it daily, and since they've had lots of practice at it, there's some pretty amazing photos up there as well!
July 3, 2010
The whale watching has been awesome since the last update. One of the best things about it has been the incredible variety of sightings; this is the one of the reasons we love Jeffreys Ledge! As an example, yesterday morning we saw three rare Sei whales, Fin whales, Minke whales, a Basking Shark, Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins, and lots of Bluefin Tuna. In the afternoon we saw five Humpbacks, Fin whales, Minke whales, lots more tuna, and had a "grand slam" with all four species of Shearwater birds: Manx, Sooty, Greater, and Cory's! In the last week we've also seen lunge feeding Fin whales, open mouth feeding, breaching and tail breaching Humpbacks, and a very curious juvenile Humpback who spent 45 minutes one morning spyhopping close to the boat! This is a behavior in which a whale positions itself almost vertically in the water and then raises its head above the surface to get a good look around. Please make sure to visit our Facebook page; our naturalists and crew post updates daily, and they also include the amazing pictures they take on each trip!
June 22, 2010
Great day on the water today! On our morning trip we had 4 Fin whales, and Hornbill the Humpback, as well as some Minke whales and a couple of basking sharks. The afternoon was just as good with 4-5 Fin whales, one who was identified as Trax, first seen in 1979, and the Humpback whale Doric. Wednesdays weather looks a little shaky, but it looks like the weekend should be gorgeous!
June 21, 2010
Our full time whale watch season has begun, and so far the whale watching has been great! Recently the whales have been a bit closer to shore than normal, and a whole lot closer than they were at the start of the season. We have sighted familiar Fin Whales Loon, Squiggle, Fjord and most excitingly, Ladder in recent days. We have also been seeing Humpback whales fairly regularly on our trips, as well as Minke Whales. For more in depth sightings info, visit our Facebook page. Our naturalists have been doing a great job with in depth sightings updates and photos.
May 29, 2010
The whale watching continues to be great out on Jeffreys Ledge! Today we started the trip with a Fin whale who was traveling at a decent pace and was difficult to get a look at at first. However, after we figured out the whales travel pattern, we were able to get some excellent looks. We then continued up the ledge to the northeast, and located quite the feeding frenzy! Involved in this frenzy were the humpback whales Satula, Highlighter, and Basmati, along with a ton of Tuna and diving Gannets. There were also a lot of scared Herring at the surface. The humpbacks were bubble feeding and surfacing with their mouths wide open, while the tuna were chasing the fish that the whales missed, and the Gannets were cleaning up the scraps! All in all an awesome day out on Jeffreys Ledge!
May 12, 2010
It was an exciting day yesterday as we set out with the Granite State on sea trials with the crew from Caterpillar Marine Power. The new engines passed the test with flying colors. The Granite State topped out at 24 knots (28 miles per hour), our previous top speed was 19 knots. The boat cruised at about 17 knots, 4 knots faster than previously, all while burning less fuel! Any of you who have been out with us before will notice the difference as soon as we leave the dock. Thank you to all of our crew, family, and friends who have worked so hard to complete this project!
Capt. Pete
May 8, 2010
It has been a busy winter in the boatyard, but the spring whale watch season is finally just around the corner. I can't wait to get out on the water and take the new and improved Granite State out to Jeffreys Ledge. We finally fired up our brand new Caterpillar C-12 engines, and they sounded great. They will give us more speed than we had in the past, while saving a whole lot of fuel- which is great for the environment! In addition the new engines are remarkably quieter than the old ones, making it a much quieter trip for both our passengers and the whales. I hope to see you all soon!
Capt. Pete
September 21, 2009
The weather has kept us in port more than we would like lately, but the whales have been great when we have been out. We continue to see lots of Fin whales, many of them continuing to feed on the small Herring that have made Jeffreys Ledge come alive this summer. We've also been seeing Humpbacks, and a ton of Atlantic White Sided Dolphin as well. This season continues to be one of the best that we have had in terms of whale sightings in quite some time! Come join us for some wonderful fall whale watching!
September 6, 2009
We had another great week of whale watching, with the added bonus of sunshine, unlimited visibility, and calm seas! On our trips this week we had very high numbers of Fin whales (at least 10-20 per trip), and got to witness many of them feeding. This is great news for our passengers, as it means lots of whales to look at, and great news for the whales as well, because it means there's lots of food! We also had several different humpbacks this week, with many of them also exhibiting different feeding behaviors. Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins were seen on a few of our trips, and one day we saw three different pods on one trip! We've been noticing a lot of jellyfish in the water lately, and sure enough, we found an Ocean Sunfish, or Mola Mola, just outside the harbor two days in a row! They are the largest bony fish in the world, and weigh about a ton. Jellyfish are their main food source, and anyone who's been lucky enough to see one of these very unique looking fish will not soon forget it. In addition to these species, we also saw Minke whales, Bluefin tuna, Harbor seals, and many species of pelagic birds this week. It's amazing to be in an area with the opportunity to see so many different types of animals; every day is truly a new adventure!
August 30, 2009
It continues to be a fantastic season of whale watching! Since the last update, we're still having high numbers of sightings on every trip, and we've had a great variety of species as well. In addition to Humpback, Fin, and Minke whales, we've seen Atlantic White-sided Dolphins, Harbor seals, Harbor porpoise, Bluefin tuna, and Blue sharks! The pelagic birds also continue to be around in incredibly high numbers, and we've been happy to have so many wonderful birders on board with us! The arrival of fall doesn't mean the exit of whales; they will be in the area until November or December, and some species live in the North Atlantic year round. We hope to see you soon!
August 17, 2009
Here at the harbor, we have a board that lists our recent sightings from the past few days. As an illustration of just how good the whale watching has been lately, here's the list of what we had over the weekend, for everyone else to see!
Sat. Aug. 15: 25 Humpbacks, lots of bubble cloud and open mouth feeding, flipper slapping, breaching, etc. 150 Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins. 12 Fin whales. 2 Minke whales. 10 Harbor porpoise.
Sun. Aug. 16: 31 Humpbacks, lots of bubble cloud and open mouth feeding, flipper slapping, breaching, etc. 40 Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins. 10 Fin whales. 11 Minke whales. 1 Harbor seal.
Wow!!
August 15, 2009
Well, it's the broken record routine again, it seems like every day the whale watching gets better and better! There continues to be large amounts of bait out on Jeffreys Ledge, and as a result, there continues to be incredible amounts of marine life in the area. Not just whales, but we've seen several pods of Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins this week, and the pelagic bird show remains the best it's probably ever been. New whales show up in the area every day, and we've seen quite a few Humpbacks that none of us have ever seen before on Jeffreys Ledge (and some of us have been doing this for decades!) Some of these whales were seen earlier this summer down on Stellwagon Bank, but have decided to join the feeding frenzy up here instead! We've been lucky enough to witness a lot of behaviors that we don't often get to see; besides the impressive feeding activity, we've been treated to breaching, tail lobbing, and flipper slapping often in the last few days. Every trip is a new adventure, and while we never know what we'll see when we leave the dock every day, we encourage anyone who's ever thought about going whale watching to join us soon...your chances of having a great trip are about as good as they get!
August 9, 2009
The whale watching continues to be excellent! I feel like a broken record writing these reports, but things out on Jeffreys Ledge have been consistently amazing! The whales continue to feed voraciously on the ledge, and we've also been seeing some of the more rare behaviors like breaching, flipper slapping, and tail lobbing. The highlight of the last few days was seeing some of our favorite whales return to the area, Clipper and Newton. Clipper returned this year with a very large and playful calf who has already been the highlight of a couple of trips. The weather continues to be gorgeous, hope you can join us!!
August 1, 2009
Things are still great out on Jeffreys Ledge with lots of feeding, and new whales showing up all the time. Over the last two days we have sighted Upsilon and Trident for the first time this year. The whales continue to feed intensely with lots of bubble clouds and lunge feeding. Sighted in the last couple of days have been Chromosome, Fan, Filament, Milky Way, Mudskipper, Quote, Scylla, Solas, Tigris, Trident, Tripod, Upsillon and Valley as well as Fjord, one of our favorite fin whales!
July 28, 2009
We have been having some great trips out on Jeffreys Ledge lately. We continue to see lots of surface feeding behaviors from both Humpback and Fin whales. A few old friends have returned to Jeffreys after long absences. Freckles (last seen in 2003) and Milky Way (last seen in 1996) both returned to feed yesterday. We had over a dozen Humpbacks, lots of Fin whales, Minkes and even some Atlantic White Sided Dolphins over the last couple of days!
July 19, 2009
The whale watching has continued to be great over the last week. We have sighted our Humpback friends Hornbill, Flask, Mudskipper, Quote, Valley, Tripod, Chromosome, Scylla, Tornado, Flask, Satula, Polaris, and Boomerang. We also sighted Prong, a female Fin whale who was first seen with her calf in the summer of 2000. There have also been numerous other feeding Fin whales around as well as some Dolphins and lots of Minke whales.
July 13, 2009
Great whale watching over the last couple days with lots of feeding and some active whales. We have been seeing both Humpbacks and Fin whales engaging in some intense feeding behaviors much closer to Rye Harbor than usually, some only 8 miles away! Among this group of whales are Fjord the Fin whale, as well as Quote, Flask, and Mudskipper- all Humpback whales.
Today we definitely had two great trips on Jeffreys Ledge, the highlight on both trips being Valley and Tornado, who decided that they were going to get a little active. On the morning trip we were just leaving to return to Rye when they both breached simultaneously right next to boat! On the afternoon trip we found the pair again, when Tornado began breaching in the distance. The pair then continued to breach, flipper slap, and tail lob for almost ten minutes straight. There were also a half dozen other Humpbacks, some Fin whales, and Atlantic White Sided Dolphin sighted yesterday.
July 6, 2009
The whale watching has been awesome on Jeffreys Ledge the last few days. An abundance of bait fish has settled in, resulting in some pretty cool feeding behaviors. Over the last few days we have seen Fin whales and Minke whales lunge feeding at the surface, and a lot of open mouth and bubble feeding from the Humpback whales. Every day it seems like a few more whales move into the area. Today we spent the morning on a southern part of the ledge and had a bunch of whales, then moved up to a central part of the ledge in the afternoon and had even more whales! It was a real feeding frenzy this afternoon with 6+ Humpbacks bubble feeding on Herring. We identified Valley, Tigris, and Tripod among the group this afternoon. This morning we identified Fin whale 9724 as well as Hornbill and Sedge. Yesterday we also sighted our first Atlantic White Sided Dolphin of the year, which was a real treat for everyone onboard.
The bird watching has been excellent as well. Over the last few days we have sighted three species of Jaeger, four species of Shearwaters, a Puffin, and lots of Storm Petrels and Gannets.
We can't wait to get out there tomorrow....hope you can join us!
June 14, 2009
It has been an encouraging couple of days out on Jeffreys Ledge. We have begun to sight some of the whales that were brand new to the area last year, but have returned again with new names! On Friday we headed out in the rain with a hearty school group on board and were treated to some great sightings. We spotted two Humpbacks whales "Trough," who was known as 0810 last year, and "Literal," who is formerly known as 0802. When a new whale is sighted, the Blue Ocean Society assigns it a number until it can be formally named. The first two numbers represent the year the whale was first sighted and the second two represent the order it was sighted in. So, 0802 was the second new whale sighted in 2008 and 0810 was the tenth.
Saturday we headed out again and ended up in a different area of the ledge than where we had great sightings on Friday, and found even more activity. We were surprised to find a couple of frequent visitors to Jeffreys, two Humpbacks named Gondolier and Flask- one of our favorites! There was also a Fin Whale and a couple of Minke whales in the area. The rain is supposed to clear out in time for our whale watch today, so we hope to see you out there!
May 30, 2009
We have had a generally great start to our season. While we are still doing school field trips during the week, we have been whale watching on the weekends. Our first weekend was pretty good overall. Saturday we were treated to our friend from last season, Komodo, doing lots of open mouth feeding and a little bit of lunge feeding. We also has close to half a dozen Fin whales clustered in one area. Things seemed to clear out of the area a bit on Sunday, however the visibility was a bit difficult. We did manage to find 6-7 Minke whales however. On Memorial Day we had an all day bird watching charter, but the whales were definitely the highlight! We found a group of four Humpbacks, and one of them named Patchwork became curious about the boat and spent a good 20 minutes just rolling over next to and underneath us. We also saw Gondolier, who breached several times as we approached, as well as several Fin whales and a bunch of Minkes.
Today we headed out with encouraging reports from fishing boats and had a very good day. We started inshore with a couple of very cooperative Minkes. We then located a mother and calf Humpback whale pair, our first of the year! The calf was quite playful, and when she wasn't nursing from mom she was flipper slapping, rolling over, and tail breaching. After that awesome sighting, we moved a little further offshore and located our first basking shark of the season, and got some really great looks at it! We then ended the trip looking at a couple of very cooperative Fin Whales.
April 11, 2009
Our first whale watch is just over a month away, and we can't wait to get back out there! Reports from fishing boats are very encouraging with lots of Humpback, Finback, and Right Whales around Jeffreys Ledge. We've been hard at work in the boat yard getting the Granite State ready for another season of whale watching, our 29th as a company! The 2009 schedule is posted, hope to see you this season. Please call or e-mail us for reservations.
March 20, 2009
Check out the videos below from ABC news in Charlston, SC to see what our crew members Jonathan and Melanie have been up to this winter researching Right Whales in their southern breeding grounds. This work is vital to the research of Right Whales and their new calves, as well as protecting them on a day to day basis by alerting ships to whales presence.
Video 1 Video 2
January 10, 2009
Happy New Year! What a great year of whale watching! To summarize the season that was, here are a few facts: We traveled to Jeffreys Ledge in search of whales 151 times last season, and sighted whales on all but 3 trips. We sighted 453 Humpbacks, 458 Fin Whales, 217 Minke Whales, 15 extremely rare North Atlantic Right Whales, and 17 Sei Whales (thanks to our friends at the Blue Ocean Society for those numbers.) We were also lucky enough to sight lots of Pilot Whales, White Sided Dolphins, Harbor porpoise, seals, Basking Sharks, Blue Sharks, and Ocean Sunfish. The Granite State traveled over 8000 miles, far enough to travel across the Atlantic and back! Most importantly, we got to meet a lot of wonderful people, and were able to help them to experience these amazing creatures in their natural environment.
Thank you to our crew for all of their hard work, and to everyone that joined us to help make 2008 one of our best seasons yet!
October 8, 2008
The fall has continued to provide excellent whale watching on Jeffreys Ledge. Sunday was one of our better trips of the season, with seven species of marine mammal sighted! We started the trip off with a few Harbor seals around the Isles of Shoals, then passed by several pods of Harbor porpoise on our way out to the ledge. Just inside of Jeffreys we stopped to take a look at a Sei Whale and after several great looks at it, to our surprise a mother and calf Right Whale appeared. This mother was identified as Right whale #1321. Her calf was one of only 20 to be born over the winter. After this rare treat we moved onto Jeffreys where we sighted three species of whales in one small area. There was a Minke whale and a Fin whale, as well as 5+ Humpback whales. The five we were able to identify were Venom, Mantis, Flask, Quote and Quote's 2008 calf. It's too bad that this is our last week of whale watching, as the sightings are so great!!
September 22, 2008
What a great weekend on the water! We were treated to our most diverse group of sightings so far this season. Saturday, we started with several cooperative Minke whales, got some great looks at a few Fin whales, and then finished the day off with a new Humpback sighting for us, Filament's 07 calf. Filament's calf was very cooperative giving us some great looks at some interesting feeding behavior.
Sunday was definitely one of our favorite days of the season so far! Much like Saturday, we started off wit cooperative Minke and Fin whales, then moved on to a very exciting sighting of four North Atlantic Right Whales. These whales are extremely rare, in fact, four of them represents over 1% of the population of the entire species!! One of these whales was fairly active, rolling over at the surface several times. We even sighted a couple of Sei whales and a Fin whale in amongst the right whales. What a day!!
September 16, 2008
Our recent whale watches have continued to be excellent! While the weather has kept us tied up a little more than it usually does, but when we have been out to the ledge the Fin whales have still been excellent. There have also been a ton of dolphins out on the ledge, we have seen them on all but one of our last dozen trips! We keep hearing rumors from some offshore fishing boats of a few Humpbacks and even a Right whale being sighted on the ledge, but it has always been on days when we haven't had a trip.
Please note that we are sold out with a private charter this Saturday. Hope to see you soon to enjoy some excellent fall whale watching.
September 1, 2008
Tons and tons of Fin whales yesterday! The highlight of the day was a group of seven Fin whales who were feeding together. They would all surface in a group, just feet from each other. Thats 500 feet of whale right next to the boat! At one point we were just shut down drifting and the group turned in towards us and proceeded to swim right under the boat. It is impressive anytime just one whale does this, but when seven do it at the same time, it leaves you a little speechless!!
There have also been a few Minkes around, and we are still seeing lots of different pods of Atlantic White Sided Dolphins. We also had a very friendly Blue Shark who we fed hot dogs to. He agreed that they tasted great!
It's officially fall, so we hope you can join us for our favorite time of the season!
|
Named Whales Sighted 2010
Humpbacks
Abrasion
Anvil's 2009 calf
Barb
Basmati
Cardhu
Chromosome
Diablo and calf
Doric
EtchaSketch
Filament and calf
Fracture
Fulcrum
Fundy's 2008 calf
Grackle
Highlighter
Hornbill
Ivee
Kickstart
Kohoutek
Knuckles and Calf
Lavalier
Lavalier's 2009 calf
Leukos and calf
Lutris
Mars
Nile
Nuages
Pinball
Pinpoint
Pitcher
Plateau
Sabot
Satula
Sickle
Siphon's 2009 calf
Solas
Striation
Tripod and calf!
Tornado
Vault
Vulture
Wheat
Zipper
Fin Whales
9709
0354
0532
9718
9724
Dingle
Fjord
Loon
Ladder
Trax
Named Whales Sighted 2009
Humbacks
Basmati and calf
Boomerang
Cajun
Chromosome
Clipper and calf!!!
Colt
Compass
Crisp
Cygnus
Diablo
Dice
Fan
Filament
Flask!!!
Fracture
Freckles
Fundy's 2008 calf
Glo-stick
Gondolier
Hornbill
Ivee
Jabiru
Komodo
Literal
Leukos
Midnight
Milky Way
Mudskipper
Newton!!!
Owl
Patchwork
Pinball
Pina & Calf
Polaris
Quote
Raccoon
Sabot
Satula
Scylla
Sedge
Skua
Solas
Spinnaker
Stonewall
Sword
Tigris
Tornado
Trident
Tripod
Trough
Trowel
Upsillon
Valley
Wizard
Fin Whales
Crow
Dingle
Fjord
Ladder!!
Prong
0354
0402
0407
0509
0718
9709
9618
9724
9904
|