marine Sanctuary Archives

Sun, Seas and Stellwagan Banks

Taking advantage of a beautiful day I climbed aboard another Captain John Boats Whale Watching Tour to Stellwagan bank. I’ve had a tough time seeing Breaching whales when I’ve gone out. They seem to come around on every trip except the one I’m on! Very frustrating! The trips have been good. There are whales every time but not doing really exciting behaviors.

Where to ride? Top deck or bottom?

I’ve been riding the top deck thinking I’d get a better angle for my photos. The problem is that if I’m on the right, the whales are on the left. Ugh! It’s just the luck of the draw. Usually when the whales show up on one side, everyone runs across to that side of the boat. I’ve stopped doing that. But today I think I have a solution.

I’m King of the World

I grabbed the middle seat in the front row on deck one. This is right at the bow. I can run out to the tip of the bow and watch the whales on the right, left and front. About the only view I don’t have here is off the stern. I made myself comfortable for the hour and a half ride to Stellwagan Bank National Marine Sanctuary,

WOW A 10- Plus Plus Plus trip

The first whales we found were doing “close ups” for another Whale Watching ship. There were a lot of small fishing boats in the area too. As we approached a whale did a full body breach right next to us. Of course I missed it. I only saw the splash. The next breach practically landed on one of the fishing boats. There were flipper slaps and tail breaches and multiple body breaches! It was during all this activity that I managed to catch a full body breach. We’d only just begun and the trip was already a winner.

As fast as the Real Estate rush began it stopped. I went from working every waking moment to suddenly having time on my hands. I keep thinking there’s something I’ve forgotten to do. There was no gradual slowing down…just slammed one minute and then nothing the next! So with a quiet Sunday staring me in the face I thought a whale watching trip might be in order.

I ordered my ticket online and headed to Plymouth at 11:30. I figured I’d get there early, have some lunch and then line up for boarding. It was a beautiful day, close to 90 degrees and sunny.

A perfect day to be on the water.

The activity at Plymouth Harbor proved my assumption. Traffic was brutal and parking nonexistent. I was very glad I gave myself extra time. I finally parked in the Citizens Bank lot which had been opened up for a fee of $10.00 for the day.

But once underway the hassle was all worthwhile.

We passed Bug light and then Gurnet Point Lighthouse which marks the end of the harbor. We headed out to Stellwagon Bank which is an underwater plateau. These plateaus cause “upwelling” which stirs up the nutrients and makes for rich feeding grounds. It’s also a protected marine sanctuary. One corner of the plateau comes quite close to Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod. It was my guess that this was where we were headed.

The Pilgrim Tower in Provincetown hadn’t quite come into view when I saw something breach and splash. Then others saw it when it happened again. It was so quick none of us knew what we were seeing. Finally the naturalist on board got on the PA and told us we’d just witnessed some tuna jumping! Tuna, I never would have guessed!

A few minutes later we entered the Marine sanctuary and immediate spotted 4 humpback whales . They were an Association not a Pod as Pods are families and these were 4 unrelated whales.

It was the day of the tails.

They’d cruise along on the surface for a bit then dive and all of them liked getting their tail flukes out of the water.

2 of the Whales came right up next to our boat. Of course, I was on the wrong side. Just my luck!

No breaching or flipper slapping today but we got great looks at the tails. The tails besides being so very photogenic are also like fingerprints. Each whale has a different pattern and the scientists have thousands of tail flukes cataloged. I’m sure the photographer on board is sending all of her photos out for identification.