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Sightings & News
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!
August 23, 2008
The whales have been awesome lately! Thursday we had a ton of feeding Fin whales, and in the afternoon we had the largest pod of dolphins that we've had in a couple of seasons with over 1000 dolphins in the pod! Friday was awesome as well, with three new Humpbacks to Jeffreys Ledge for this season. We got great looks at Rapier, Clipper, and Filament-all adult female whales. Clipper had been sighted in the Bay of Fundy just a couple of weeks ago, which shows just how far these amazing whales can travel in a relatively short period of time!
August 18, 2008
We had a great day out on the water yesterday. The afternoon trip was just amazing! We started out with a couple of Fin whales, and were treated to a unbelievable surface feeding display. One of the whales would do a sharp circle and then come up on it's side with it's mouth open and pectoral fin strait up in the air. We then moved on to a pod of very friendly Atlantic White Sided Dolphins, who circled the boat and were very playful. The trip ended on a high note with the sighting of Hornbill, a Humpback whale who was first identified in 1977!
August 15, 2008
Lots of great whales lately. The stars of the last couple of days have been the Pilot whales, we've seen close to 100 of them on each of the last couple of trips. They are a lot of fun to watch, as they exhibit some fun behaviors, like breaching, tail slapping, and spy-hopping. We have also been seeing a fair amount of Fin whales, including one of our favorites, Dingle, who has been feeding pretty intensely at times lately. There have also been a lot of Minkes around as well as an occasional pod of Atlantic White Sided Dolphins.
The seabirds have also been plentiful as well with lots of Gannets, Storm Petrels, Greater Shearwaters as well as some Corey's and Manx Shearwaters, and some Phalaropes.
August 3, 2008
Sightings have continued to be plentiful lately. We have been seeing lots of Fin whales, including some very large ones- 70+ feet! Most of them have been feeding in the area, giving us a bunch of great looks at them. There have been a few Minke whales very close to shore who have been feeding on the large amount of Mackerel there. We have also seen a few pods of Pilot whales, a rare and exciting sighting! We've seen them do some spy-hopping, tail slapping and a few half breaches. We have also seen a couple of Humpbacks, including Spinnaker, and 0811. The weather looks great for the next few days, hope you can join us!
July 29, 2008
Great trips yesterday! In the morning we had our first sighting of Pilot Whales since the 2005 season, a very exciting moment for us! Pilot whales are a lot of fun to see, some are as large as Minke whales, but the travel in large pods, often surfacing right next to the boat. There have been a lot of squid, the Pilot Whales food of choice, around Jeffreys Ledge lately so we were hoping we would get a visit from these amazing toothed whales. We also sighted our Humpback friend 0811 on the morning trip. In the afternoon, sightings were different, but still great. There seemed to be a large number of Fin whales moving into the area, including two pairs of mothers and their new calves.
July 25, 2008
After losing a day and a half to some pretty awful weather, we were happy to get back at it this afternoon. The whales were a little further out than they have been, but we went the extra couple of miles and were rewarded with the sighting of a mother and calf Fin whale, three single Fin whales, and a single feeding Humpback. We also had a couple of quick looks at a Minke whale.
July 23, 2008
We have had very good sightings of late with lots of very active and curious whales, and a few of them have been brand new to Jeffrey's Ledge! In the morning yesterday we even had two species of whales breach (jump right out of the water) close to the boat. Just out past the Isles of Shoals we started the trip with a very active Minke whale, who was traveling rather quickly, and surprised us all by breaching right next to the boat two times! We then moved offshore and spent some time with a couple of Humpbacks, spending the most time with Rouge who was actively feeding. Right as we were getting ready to move a little further offshore, we noticed another Humpback whale breaching in the distance, so we traveled in that direction. To our surprise, this whale breached over 20 times, an amazingly high number for such a rare behavior. It really has been an excellent season so far!!
July 19, 2008
Sightings have continued to be excellent over the last few days! The highlight of the last four trips was on Thursday afternoon when "0814," a juvenile Humpback spent 45 minutes exploring the boat. At one point 0814 flipper slapped close enough to the bow of the boat that it splashed people on the bow! It is always awesome to be able to shut the boat down and watch a whale who seems to be enjoying our company. 0814 also breached a couple of times and spy-hopped a bunch of times right next to the boat. A few times the whale would blow bubbles under the surface, and then spy-hop through the cloud of bubbles it had created, a new behavior for us!
Other named whales that we have sighted lately- Humpbacks Slope, Trigger, Littlespot, Wy, Hang-glide, Rouge, Gavel, Apex's 06 Calf, and Komodo. Fin whales- 0635, and 9724.
July 15, 2008
We've been running for almost three months, and have really yet to have a bad trip! This is really becoming a great season out on Jefferey's Ledge! The sightings have remained consistent over the last few days, with a ton (or thousands of tons, literally!) of Humpbacks and Minkes, and a few Fin whales scattered around. We did re-sight Fin whale #9904 and her calf on Monday. At one point the calf rolled over and swam upside down just under the surface for about 100 feet! The named Humpbacks we sighted yesterday were Upsilon and Kimodo, with another four unnamed Humpbacks in the area. The weather looks perfect over the next few days, so we hope to see you out there!
July 11, 2008
The whale watching continues to be outstanding on Jeffrey's Ledge! We have still been seeing high numbers of whales on all of our trips. It seems like the some of the whales have been spending part of the day in a large group- we had at least 12 in one small area yesterday afternoon, and then the other part of the day they will spread out a little bit. The reason they are doing this is unknown, but it seems like it has been a pretty consistent behavior over the last couple of weeks. We've sighted a lot of the new whales that we've been seeing lately, as well as Bungee and Calf, Owl and Calf, Apex's 06 Calf, Komodo, Lacey's 07 Calf, Hangglide, Egret, Solas, Chromosome, Gavel, and a few others I'm sure I'm forgeting!
July 9, 2008
We're staying onshore today due to rough seas offshore. It's too bad because the whale watching is as good as it's been all year! We lost count of how many different whales we saw yesterday, but a rough total would be 6-8 Minkes, 1 Fin whale, at least 15 Humpbacks, and a very cooperative basking shark! We were also excited to see Bungee, a frequent summer visitor to Jeffreys Ledge, return this year with a calf. It's been great to see Owl, Clamp and now Bungee all return to the ledge with calves this year, a sign that the future is indeed bright! The whales were definitely focused on feeding today, at one point using our boat as a tool to trap the krill or herring that they were feeding on. Every now and then however, for a reason unknown to us a few whales would take a break from feeding and do some breaching, flipper slapping, and tail lobbing. In the afternoon we decided to go the extra mile and travel out to a separate group of seven Humpbacks away from the rest of the whale watching fleet, and it payed off as we were all alone without a boat in sight and were able to just shut the boat down and enjoy the whales in their natural environment.
We'll be back at it tomorrow, the weather looks perfect straight into next week!
July 7, 2008
We had a great trip this morning with three Humpbacks, a Fin whale and a couple of Minkes. The afternoon was even more spectacular, with a pair of whales that became curious about the boat and circled around and under us for over half an hour. There was lots of spy hopping, rolling over, flipper slapping and a full breach and chin breach! It was definitely a trip that we will remember for a long time to come!!! We'll have some pictures up soon!
July 5, 2008
Sightings continue to be excellent, with five species of marine mammals sighted today! The same whales seem to really be sticking around feeding. Today we were also lucky to have lots of close to boat behavior, with a couple of different whales inspecting us for quite some time.
On a different note, I haven't posted a report for all of you bird watchers in a while. The birding is quite good out where the whales are. Three species of Shearwaters yesterday (all but a Corey's,) thousands of Petrels, a lot of Gannets, and an occasional Fulmar. I also spotted a Surf Scoter in the harbor earlier in the week, the first I have seen in the harbor in a couple of years during the summer months!
July 4, 2008
What a great day out on the water today! Flat calm seas, with just a couple of showers in the morning, followed by bright sunshine for the rest of the day. The whales continue to be consistently great, and both trips today lived up to expectations.
The highlight of both trips was a group of six Humpbacks that was feeding in a group together. It was another instance when we could just shut the boat down and drift, and everywhere you looked ther was a whale around! There were also a large number of Fin Whales in that area, with a mom calf pair sighted in the afternoon.
Also sighted today were Clamp and her new calf, who was very curious and circled the Granite State several times as well as Flask, our naturalist Beth's favorite whale!
Come join us while we are in this stretch of awesome weather!
July 2, 2008
It was a true New England weather day out there today, with a little bit of sun, some clouds, a few showers, and thick morning fog. None of that slowed us down though, as we had another great day out on Jeffreys Ledge! A lot of feeding this afternoon up on top of the ledge, which was packed with bait fish. There were some whales that we sighted for the first time this year, among whom were Chromosome, Clamp, and Tripod. It was very encouraging to see so much bait on the ledge, and some great feeding activity....a good sign that these excellent sightings will continue. Also sighted today were 5-6 Fin whales, including a mother and calf who were escorted by a pod of Atlantic White Sided Dolphin, and a lot more Minke Whales than we have been seeing lately. It was definitely a great day out there!
July 1, 2008
After a few days of not being out on the ledge, we were curious about what we would find out there. The answer was a whole lot of whales! We started out the AM trip with a great Basking Shark. It stayed right up on the surface and let us get some awesome looks at. Next we moved offshore and started with a very nice and large Fin Whale. While watching the Fin Whale, we noticed a few more blows in the distance, so we went to investigate. We found a group of over 10 Humpbacks all grouped together feeding. This allowed us to be able to shut the boat down and just drift with the whales for close to an hour. The highlight of the trip was a Humpback who tail lobbed close to a dozen times close to the boat.
The PM trip did not disappoint either! We started off with a bang, when Apex's 06 calf breached right next to the boat! We then found the same group as the morning and were able to just shut down and drift again, enjoying the company of the whales.
Sighted today were: Apex's 06 Calf, Komodo, Flagpole, Solas, and Egret, as well as a few unnamed whales that are familiar to us.
June 30, 2008
Yikes....three straight days of weather cancellations! We're all going a little bit stir crazy, the whales have been great, we can't wait to get back out and spend some time with them.
The rest of the week looks perfect, with just a little bit of wind predicted for Thursday afternoon. We are hoping we can put together a nice full week of trips! Come out and beat the heat, it's often 15-20 cooler out with the whales.
We will be offering a 4th of July Fireworks and Isles of Shoals Cruise at 7PM, please call for reservations!
June 27, 2008
It continues to be a pleasure to travel out to Jeffreys Ledge everyday. The sightings continue to be consistently amazing. On Thursday morning we spent almost an hour with the engines shut down while 6 lazy Humpbacks and 2-3 Fin whales just swam circles around us. In the afternoon the whales were very hungry, and had found a large amount of bait to satisfy their hunger. Once again we were able to shut the engines off and just drift while the whales blew bubble clouds and then came right up through the clouds with their mouths wide open, sometimes just feet from the boat. It was a truly memorable day of whale watching!
Sighted recently have been Dingle the Fin whale, Rune's 07 calf, Owl + Calf, Flagpole, Gavel, Quote, Solas, Sonogram, and a few familiar but as of yet unnamed whales.
June 24, 2008
Another great trip today! We took the afternoon off due to the storms, but the weather couldn't have been more perfect this morning. The whales were awesome as well. There was a lot of feeding activity on the ledge today. The first sightings of the trip were a single Fin Whale and Rune's 07 calf, both of whom were concentrating on filling their stomachs up. We then moved on to a large group of 6-8 Humpbacks, among whom were Owl and calf, Valley, Upsilon, and a couple of unidentified whales that we have been seeing frequently. They were feeding heavily as well. We can't wait to get back out there tomorrow, the weather finally looks perfect for a few days!
June 21, 2008
We've had a fair amount of fog out on the ledge lately, but it really hasn't slowed us down. It was very thick this morning, but we managed to find a nice juvenile Humpback, who surfaced close to the boat several times, and even treated us to a tail breach. The fog finally cleared for the afternoon and we had a great trip. We started off with a mother and calf Fin whale, our first Fin Whale calf sighting of the year! A little further offshore we found Solas, a Humpback we have been seeing regularly over the last week. The highlight of the trip was an unidentified Humpback that flipper slapped next to the boat a few times. Once it smacked it's body, causing it to release a lot of "processed" Krill, bringing a chuckle from the crew and passengers. After turning for home we discovered a group of 5-8 Humpback Whales who seemed to have traveled in from the east. It was a good sign for the upcoming trips!
We are on our full summer schedule, departing everyday at 8:30am & 1:30pm.
June 18, 2008
The last two days have continued to be great! Lots of Humpbacks and a few Fin Whales around too. Sighted over the last couple of days have been Apex's 06 calf, Rune's 06 calf, Solas, Flagpole, Sonogram, Gavel, Lutris and many others. There has been a lot of impressive feeding behaviors happening with a lot of Herring and Krill in the area. The highlight of the last couple of days was on Tuesday afternoon when Flagpole breached (jumped clear out of the water) next to us four times, and then proceeded to flipper slap for a while.
The weather has also been great, with smooth seas and no rain yet! Looks like a nice couple of days coming up as well.
June 16, 2008
Sightings continued to be amazing over the weekend with 20+ whales sighted on both days! We are still amazed at how many of the whales that we have been seeing are new to us here on Jeffreys Ledge. Every day it seems there is another whale that we have never seen, which is a great sign for the future!
We canceled our whale watch today due to poor conditions offshore, but sea conditions look just about perfect for the rest of the week. We will be departing everyday at 1:30pm.
June 14, 2008
The whales continue to be amazing on Jeffreys Ledge! We spent time today with a group of seven Humpbacks and a couple of Finbacks, although the Finbacks were a little bit elusive. Lots of feeding activity though, with a few whales breaching in the area as well. It has been a while since the whale watching has been this consistently good! Looks like perfect sea conditions tomorrow, and the rain should all have passed by departure time.
June 10, 2008
Wow, this is the best the whale watching has been in close to a decade on Jeffreys Ledge. We spent over an hour yesterday just drifting around with the engines shut off and whales surrounding us. At one point we had three Humpbacks just hanging at the surface ten feet from the boat. Our crew on Monday has been on 5,000+ combined whale watches, and were were all amazed by what we were seeing. We will begin running trips everyday this Saturday, hope to see you out there soon!
Capt. Pete
June 7, 2008
We are definitely getting off to one of our best starts in recent memory this year! We had another spectacular day of whale watching today. The trip began with a single Fin Whale that we watched for a while as the fog was beginning to burn off. After several good looks at the Fin Whale, we moved on to the area offshore where we had great whales on Friday. On our way there we stopped to pick up a cluster of balloons, which can be deadly to many of the creatures we set out to watch. We were rewarded for this good deed, as just as we were finished picking up the balloons, a juvenile Humpback appeared right next to us! This whale treated us well, giving us some awesome looks. At this point the fog had cleared so we set out offshore and found several more Fin Whales as well as five more Humpbacks, among which were Freefall, and an unidentified juvenile that we have been seeing frequently. We spent a lot of time shut down and drifting, just watching the whales feed. All said, another awesome day on the water!
I would also like to thank the crew for the awesome job they have been doing lately. Every day I get several comments about how clean the boat is and how friendly and knowledgeable they are. We are very lucky to have such a great group!
June 6, 2008
We managed to have a great day of sightings today, despite some tough weather conditions. Our school kids were real troopers! The whales out on Jeffreys continue to be consistently great. We were pleased to see that there were still around 10 Humpbacks offshore, including Apex's 06 calf, Freefall, Rune's 07 calf, Cord, and Quote. It was also exciting to see that a fair number of Fin Whales had moved into the area as well.
We will be running trips at 11 AM both days this weekend. The weather looks great, hope you can join us!
June 1, 2008
The stormy seas from yesterday subsided and left us with some great whale watching. We started off the trip inshore with a few looks at a very friendly Minke Whale. At one point he surfaced right beside us, giving us a great look at the white band on his pectoral fins, which we refer to as the "Minke Mitten." We then proceeded offshore to the area of Jeffreys Ledge that has been so productive for us over the last few weeks, and this area definitely did not disappoint today! Upon arriving offshore, we stopped to look at a Fin Whale that had taken a dive a short distance in front of us. While we were waiting for the Fin Whale to resurface, two Humpbacks surfaced in front of us, followed by two more, then three more. All of a sudden we were surrounded by seven Humpbacks!
While most of the adult Humpbacks were intent on feeding, a juvenile began to circle us, rolling over under the surface and blowing bubbles. We shut down the engines and drifted enjoying some awesome looks at this curious whale. As the trip progressed, the feeding behavior of the other Humpbacks became more intense. At one point they were blowing "bubble clouds" and then five whales would come through the cloud at the same time. It was a truly impressive sight! As we were getting ready to turn for home, a couple of the adult whales began to slowly stick the front half of their bodies straight up out of the water. Just like a half breach, but in slow motion. It was quite amazing!
All told there were approximately 12-13 Humpbacks and 3 Fin Whales in this area of Jeffreys Ledge, we just didn't have enough time to see them all, even though we did stay out late because the whales were so great!
Identified on this trip were Owl, Rune's 07 Calf, and Gizmo. We should have more ID's soon, once we have a chance to look over the photos more carefully.
We'll be conducting educational cruises for school kids all week, but will resume our public whale watches next weekend. Hope you can join us!
Capt. Pete
May 30, 2008
Saturday's whale watch has been canceled due to a very poor marine weather forecast. Our next trip will be Sunday June 1st at 11 am.
Update on May 25th sightings: We have identified a couple more Humpbacks that were sighted, Repeat and Canine. Four whales, including our curious juvenile have yet to be identified.
May 25, 2008
Wow, what a day! We started out a bit inshore with one of our favorite whales that we have nicknamed "Scar Minke." This is because he (or she) has a large scar just in front of his dorsal fin, making him one of the only Minke Whales that we can easily identify. After visiting with our old friend we pressed on offshore to the area where we had such a great day on Saturday. When we reached that area we found a single Humpback feeding. While we were watching this whale, we noticed several other blows in the distance and decided to explore. A couple of miles to the northeast, to our excitement, were nine more Humpbacks! Among them was one of our favorites, Owl, as well as Spinnaker, Freefall, and Apex's 2006 calf who has yet to be named. Eight of the whales were intently feeding, but the ninth had something else on it's mind....the Granite State and it's passengers! This unidentified whale (it never raised it's flukes) spent over 45 minutes circling and diving under the boat, while we drifted with the engines shut down. At one point the whale exhaled while still a few feet under the water, sending a geyser of bubbles up to the surface just a few feet from the boat.
We hope this is an indication of things to come for this summer! Still no Fin Whales sighted, although we did get a report of a couple from a fishing boat a few miles to the south of us on Sunday, so hopefully they will join the fun soon. Hope to see you next weekend!
Capt. Pete
May 24, 2008
Our first trip of the year today exceeded our expectations! The weather was gorgeous, and warm for this time of year. We started out a bit inshore of Jeffreys Ledge with 6-8 Minke whales, all of whom were more concerned with feeding deep than with spending time on the surface. We were patient though, and eventually got some good looks at them. We then moved a bit further offshore, and were very excited with what we found, a group of 5 Humpbacks. They were very relaxed, and we spent much of our time with them drifting with the engines shut down. None of them have been frequent visitors to Jeffreys Ledge in the past, so we are still working on identifying four of them, but we have identified the fifth as Free Fall. The weather looks perfect for Sunday, we are hoping the whales will continue to be as well!
May 18, 2008
It is almost time to get out there for another season. The Granite State was launched on Friday and made its trip back up to Rye Harbor. Just a couple of things left to paint and we'll be ready to go.
We have still been getting excellent reports from offshore of some awesome whale activity. Humpbacks, Finbacks, Minkes and Dolphins all are reported in good numbers. There is still space available for next weekend, so there is still time to book for the most exciting trip of the year!
Thank you to everyone who applied
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Named Whales Sighted 2008
Apex Calf '06
Bungee
Bungee's 2008 Calf
Canine
Cord
Chromosome
Clamp
Clamp's 08 Calf
Clipper
Crow (Fin Whale)
Dingle (Fin Whale)
Egret
Flagpole
Flask
Filament
Filament's 07 Calf
Freefall
Gavel
Gizmo
Hangglide
Hornbill
Komodo
Lacey's 07 calf
Littlespot
Lutris
Mantis
Nile
Owl
Owl's 08 Calf
Pepper
Quote
Quote's 08 Calf
Rapier
Rapiers 07 Calf
Repeat
Rouge
Scar Minke
Slope
Solas
Sonogram
Spinnaker
Thalassa
Trigger
Tripod
Upsilon
Valley
Venom
Wy
Many unknown whales
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