On the first trip of the day we headed out west in sunny, beautiful conditions. As we were heading out, a crew member spotted a tall dorsal fin back behind us. We slowed down and were able to relocate a Minke Whale.

The minke surfaced several times near us, usually taking a few breaths and then going down for a deeper dive. There was also a huge group of sooty shearwaters in the area.

After watching the minke for a few minutes, we headed farther west and found two humpback whales near the entrance to the shipping lane.

The whales were displaying a variety of feeding behaviors, including lunge feeding, roll feeding, and fluke dives.

There was another whale farther out in the shipping lane as well. We saw a barge pass by us. Several small fishing boats were also working in the area.

The whales slowly moved east over the course of the trip.

On our second trip, we found whales again near the beginning of the shipping lane. There were three feeding whales within a thousand yards of us; all three were within the shipping lane.

Over the course of the trip, the three whales came together near the south side of the shipping lane. The whales were feeding close by to the ships.

We saw lunge feeding, roll feeding, and some coordinated behaviors. One whale rolled onto its side to feed over and over again for the entire trip.

We saw one fluke dive over the course of this trip.

We kept a distance from the whales while the large ships were present. Several of the ships slowed down as they passed by the whales.

-Allison

This post was adapted from a blog, read the original here