Right whale

Wednesday 8/29

It seems that marine mammals have bookmarked our trip. A dolphin swam by the boat on the first morning of our outbound trip. This morning, I saw my first gray seals on the first day of our invoice trip trip near the dinghy dock, and later saw my first ever right whale!  It was an easy identification because most harbors around here have an informational poster with closeups of their fins, tail, and spout.  They estimate there are only 450 left so they are critically endangered.

We first spotted this one at a distance of about 600' and thought it was a right based on the time spout.  We'd been motoring through Provincetown harbor, so we immediately throttled down and took the engine out of gear while we waited for it to surface again. In the next 5 minutes, we were the only souls in the area, so we scanned the waters continually hoping to see it again.  As usual this time of year, there was a feeding frenzy going on with stripers feeding on a school of bait fish about 100' away.  These are easy to spot because flocks of gulls and terns will also dive into the frenzy to pick out the scraps.

Evidently the whale honed in on the meal too.  It surfaced on its side with its mouth open and baleen clearly visible, chomping down on the whole swarm! Seeing the pectoral fin confirmed it was a right, maybe 30' long our so. The feeding behavior mimicked that of a blue whale that was filmed in the Pacific during the Volvo Sailboat Race last winter--one of my favorite drone shots from the race.

We saw the whale surface one more time about 5 minutes later, headed away from us, of before a couple power boats moved into the area. I suspect he/she knows enough to avoid harbor traffic and was laying low.

This was a total thrill for me, and something I'd really hoped we'd get to experience in Provincetown. After re-learning about whaling at a couple museums, which was such a historic component of coastal New England, and the damage it did to whale populations, it's been great to see that whale watching and conservation is thriving and is more profitable than killing them.

Sorry, no photo--i didn't want to miss the experience by trying to capture it.