I’ve been doing a lot more whale watching this season because the whales seem to be especially active this year.  They have been so active that I have skipped some of my other seaside activities to get some extra  outings and I have not been disappointed.

A couple of weeks after the Great Puffin Adventure I decided to give the morning whale watch a try.  I stayed on the upper deck this time. I wanted to try a different angle.

Sure enough, it was a very active trip. Right off the bat we spotted multiple humpbacks. At first we were getting backs showing as they cruised along and a few flukes.

I have plenty of photos of backs and flukes so I wasn’t too interested in that.

A bit deeper into Stellwagon bank we found ourselves surrounded by groups of humpbacks surface feeding.

That’s always fun to watch. There lots of activity with the birds trying to steal the fish that manage to escape the huge mouths.

Plus the whales swim along the surface with the water streaming out the sides of their mouths as they strain the water through their baleen.

That alone would have been a successful trip but suddenly there was a mother and calf off the port side. “Mom” would flipper slap and then the little one one would do the same.

This went on for quite awhile. In fact all of us with cameras had plenty of time to get pictures.

Eventually, as if to say goodbye, mom rolled onto her back and gave a double wave, both flippers waving in the air and then both mom and calf disappeared beneath the surface. The show was over.

We watched some more surface feeding before it was time to head back. I was just packing up the camera when a collective WOW! went up. I looked up in time  to see a whale fully breaching. It was quite a distance away. It flew fully out of the water like a giant dolphin! The splash down was huge.

That was the only full breach I saw but the feisty whale gave us a few other partial breaches. I managed to get the camera back out for the end of the show.

I’m not too disappointed that I missed getting a shot of the full breach. It was amazing to see and I think I appreciated it more by being able to watch it without the little view finder. A breaching whale, at least in this area, is a rare sight.

I’ll keep looking for another opportunity for that awesome photo shot but if I never get it , I won’t be too sad. I’ll chalk it up to the one that got away.