Offshore Whale Watching

CRESLI 36-hour Offshore Trip to the Great South Channel and Chatham, MA

August 11-13, 2024

Our first offshore trip since 2019 was a resounding and stellar success!

We scheduled the trip to coincide with the Perseid Meteor Shower, and many folks slept out on deck to view the meteors and await the morning. As expected, we arrived in the Great South Channel (the southern end of the Gulf of Maine) in 10 hours, it was clear, calm and beautiful, but with little life.  Captain Carl Forsberg had reports from colleagues about whales off Chatham MA, about 2 hours NNW.  It was there that we were greeted with the sight of approximately 3 groups of bubble-ring feeding humpback whales, approximately 10 humpbacks per group. Bubble-ring feeding is a cooperative feeding behavior that is unique to humpbacks whales. This is always a beautiful sight to behold, and many of our passengers had never experienced it before.

Ultimately, we spent 7 hours among the whales! We saw several mom/calf pairs and observed a full set of humpback surface behaviors, from open mouth feeding, dragging, breaching, tail slapping, flipper slapping, trumpet blows, and more.  These are examples of non-vocal communication. The 5 calves were a pleasure to view. Unfortunately, one of the most active calves that we saw throughout our 7 hours was entangled.  This was Indiana’s 2024 calf, with monofilament and fishing gear cutting deeply into her left fluke. First notified to the Disentanglement Team at the Center for Coastal Studies about 2 weeks ago. We notified them as well. Attempts to disentangle the calf were unsuccessful prior to our trip, and a new attempt was made to disentangle this whale on 8/14/24, but still unsuccessful. Let’s hope that the little whale will come through.

We thank the passengers, the Viking Fleet crew (Captain J.R. Gibson and Captain Carl Forsberg (out cook as well), mates John and Alex, as well as the 12 CRESLI whale watch volunteers.

Here’s a list of the 31 identified humpback whales thus far:

• 3.14
• Abrasion
• Abrasion 2024 calf
• Alligator
• Ampersand
• Arcus
• Aswan
• Bandit
• Banyan
• Combat
• Crinkle
• Crossbeam
• Divide
• Draco
• Evolution 
• Ghost
• GSC-2024-08-12-01
• Indiana
• Indiana 2024 calf
• Perpendicular
• Samara
• Spirit
• Springboard
• Stub
• Tear
• Unknown calf
• Wonderland
• Wonderland 2024 calf
• Venom
• Venom 2024 calf

Photos to view and/or purchase to help support our work - prints, digital copies, and framed artwork available 

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Meet the CRESLI naturalists/educators

Expectations:

Cetaceans: Humpback, Fin, Minke, Right; Sei, and Pilot whales; Common, Bottlenose, Atlantic White Sided, and Risso’s Dolphins; Leatherback, Green and Loggerhead Turtles; Basking, Great White, Hammerhead, and Blue Sharks; Ocean Sunfish; Portuguese Man-of-War; and other marine life.

Birds: Cory’s, Scopolli's, Great Sooty, Manx, and Audubon’s Shearwaters; Wilson’s and Leach’s Storm-Petrels; Northern Gannet; Red-necked and Red Phalaropes; Pomarine, and Parasitic Jaegers; Greater Black-backed, Herring, Laughing, and Bonaparte’s Gulls.