January 29 – February 5, 2022 

Week Two of our 31st Season

This year Aquatic Adventures embarks on its 31st season of providing our guests the unique opportunity to encounter the North Atlantic humpback whales on their breeding and calving grounds, the Silver Bank. As the season unfolds, we’ll highlight some of the various encounters and experiences of our guests each week. We hope you enjoy following along!

Wind and Whales

What a variety of behaviors and weather for our second week on the Silver Bank! We discovered dancers, singers and rowdy groups. We endured wind, sunny days and rainy days. The water during our second day on the Silver Bank was a little rough due to the high winds but this didn’t stop us from going out and finding some whales to join.

The group was very lucky this day to find a solo singing whale that allowed us to float just above and listen to his beautiful song. Deep and sometimes haunting, we listen to the humpback sing its song. The singing stops and he begins to swim off, slow at first then faster with a few powerful pumps of his flukes until it seems evident that he is going to breach! A full spinning head breach in fact; it happens in seconds, the guests move their cameras from underwater to above the surface while the whale brings its entire body out of the water in an acrobatic display of grandeur. We all cheer in excitement as the tender comes to pick us up. Watch the video of the breach here: SingerBreach1.31.22

On Tuesday night Lorenzo, one of the tender captains, gave a talk about how to ID whales. He explains this is done by comparing fluke shots to catalogs kept by various cetacean specialists. Flukes are subcategorized by the percentage of black on their flukes. It ranges from 1 to 5, where a number 1 is all white while a number 5 is completely black. One of our guests had taken the time to go through a catalog we have on board (Gulf of Maine Humpback Whale Catalog curated by the Center for Coastal Studies) and compared it to a fluke shot of the singer/breacher she had taken the day before. After searching for a few minutes, she came across the correct whale in the catalog, a whale named Lagoon. We later learned that Lagoon is a well known, older male whale that’s frequently seen by whale watch boats on the feeding grounds in the Gulf of Maine. There is something about having specific information about a whale that you have had an intimate interaction with that makes you feel connected to them in a way that is unimaginable. 

Wednesday brought rain and wind, plenty of it. Some guests opted to stay on board while others weathered the heavy squalls that came through the area. Although spotting whales was much more difficult, we did have some fun surface activity with rowdy groups in the rain and while we had quiet times the guests entertained themselves with general knowledge games and snacks. It was a cold and wet day but it just goes to prove that with a good attitude you can make any situation fun and memorable.

The last morning after a day of rain everyone was feeling anxious to have one last encounter before heading home. That morning we were lucky enough to have come across a calm mother and calf in the shallows by the coral heads where the heavy seas were broken up and visibility a bit more favorable. For our first encounter she was quite shallow so we kept our distance but had a great view of the flukes’ serrated edge and possibly an opportunity to get an underwater photo of her fluke that we might be able to use for identification purposes later on. Our second encounter with the same whale, still just a few feet from the surface, was face to face. She, with her calf calmly tucked under her jaw, hovered just below the surface just yards away. They stayed like that for awhile looking at us while we admired them, a beautiful sight of a gentle moment between mother, calf and human. Feeling blessed for an amazing conclusion to such a wonderful week.

The Aquatic Adventures team hopes that you are as inspired as we are to help sustain the humpback whale population. Through our partnership with the Center for Coastal Studies, we are helping to gain critical information on these charismatic creatures, and to seek ways to protect and preserve them. To find out more about this effort, join their mailing list or to make a donation, large or small, please visit: www.coastalstudies.org/aquaticadventures

We are proud to support SeaLegacy in their efforts to create powerful media to change the narrative around our world’s oceans. Their mission is to inspire the global community to protect our oceans. To learn more about SeaLegacy and help with this important mission, please visit: https://www.sealegacy.org

Thanks to all who have generously donated!

Learn more about Aquatic Adventures here.

Written by: Aquatic Adventures team member Gillian Morin
Edited by: Aquatic Adventures team member Heather Reser 
Images: Aquatic Adventures team member Heather Reser