On Sunday, Jo had a day off from her Plein Air Masters event, and I had booked a whale watching trip for the morning. I chose the outfit with the large catamaran boat in lieu of the zodiac outfit (where you had to wear survival suits and get wet) and the sailing vessel (which was really glamorous and cool looking.) The catamaran was faster and had a longer reach than the others, and I could not even imagine trying to photograph much of anything splashing around in a crowded zodiac. It turned out to be an excellent choice, as our group was only the second this season to experience a "grand slam" seeing three whale species in one trip. We saw Minke, Finback, and Humpback whales.
Not only did we see whales, we saw harbor porpoises, gray and harbor seals, several bald eagles, northern gannets, lighthouses, many islands and coastal cliffs. It was a beautiful day, a little windy, but otherwise sunny. The ladies who hosted the trip were exceedingly friendly and knowledgable about the Passamaquoddy Bay area off of the larger Bay of Fundy. The Bay of Fundy is known for the worlds highest tides, in other words, the difference between low and high tides can be as much as 30 feet in places along the coast. Certainly an amazing and beautiful place.
Click on the thumbnail for an animation of Mustache the humpback whale diving (please give it time to load up.) We got to see this 3 times, I got photos of it twice, as the first time I just wan't prepared for it. The finback and minke whales do not show their tail when they dive, only the humpback does this. Every time, just before it happened, our hostesses would call out, "TAIL!" On the trip back, we were treated to a natural history lesson using live sea stars, urchins, scallops, and crabs. One of the high points of the trip, for sure.
I will have more photos from the whale watching trip posted soon!
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