Last Sunday was father’s day and it was a perfect day, sunny and warm. It was a perfect day for a whale watch. It would be the first of the year for me. The Captain John website was bragging about amazing sightings from whale calves breaching to pods of whales bubble net feeding. I had to get in on the act.
All of the whale watches seem to go to the same place. The difference is how long it takes to get there. They will tell you you’re going to Stellwagen bank, a marine sanctuary. Located between Cape Ann and Cape Cod, in the southwest corner of the Gulf of Maine, is Massachusetts Bay. The bay’s most prominent submerged feature is the kidney-shaped plateau called Stellwagen Bank, which lies at the bay’s eastern edge. But in the last 3 whale watches I’ve been on we’ve never made it to Stellwagen Bank. We’ve been just outside the marine sanctuary near the tip of cape cod. Race Point at the tip of the cape has been a recurring landmark on these trips.
The last 2 trips I went on had last year had minimal activity, mainly finback whales. They are interesting but they aren’t the showmen the humpbacks are.
So I had my fingers crossed that we’d see humpbacks this trip.
The trip started off with a minke whale just cruisin’ on past us. Then we got a look at a finback whale named Blue.
She had tangled with a Provincetown Fast Ferry and the scars from that encounter gave her a distinctive look so she could be identified.
Finally we saw a tail off in the distance. The Captain took off after the diving humpback. Once near where it had disappeared we throttled back and drifted and waited. Everyone watched the water.
Finally there was the blow. The humpback did a series of shallow dives and then there it came, the arched back that precedes the beautiful fluke.
Humpbacks are identified by the markings on the tail flukes and this whale was showing off that gorgeous tail. Pretty soon the naturalist announced that the whale was named Hancock.
We spent the rest of our trip following Hancock around and put on a show he did. There were many deep dives with the traditional tail flukes which never fails to please. Each time he did that the crowd on board exploded into applause and cheers.
But the finale was a waving splashing dive that sent rainbow spray flying .
The naturalist said she had never seen anything like that!
The ride back was quiet. Everyone seemed tired from the sea and sun and excitement of the Hancock the Humpback Show.
