A Whale’s Tail

Posted on August 3, 2015August 3, 2015 by Dusty Roads

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.

We saw some other whales besides these 4 but they were more distant and these four were happy to stay and play with us so why search for more?

I had a whale of a time!

Meet Niles

Posted on August 10, 2013August 10, 2013 by Dusty Roads

It was a nice day for a boat ride but everyone wanted to see whales so there was a lot of clock watching going on. Mumbles about how we’d been sailing for an hour and seen nothing and were we going to slow down to look etc.

I was just enjoying the sun and ride. It didn’t seem that long to me. One lady was here from Louisiana and she was bundled up to her eye brows. She thought it was really cold. She was following the temperatures in Louisiana on her phone. She showed me it was 93 there to our 80. She also talked about how crowded Boston was and expensive…$60 for 3 people to have dinner and the MBTA was twice what they pay for the subway. (I didn’t know they had a subway in Louisiana) I’m not sure what town she was from but she did say it was the northern part of the state and her husband and oldest son were both “in oil”. Oh yes she thought gas process here were insane. I have to agree with her on that point.

By now we were nearing the tip of Cape Cod. We could see the Pilgrim Tower in Provincetown off in the distance. This was just about where we were with Capt’n John.

And just as with Capt’n John we spotted some Minke whales first. Then the naturalist said she could see another whale near one of the other boats. She thought it was a finback. Just then right in front of us (12 o’clock as they say) we had a whale surface and blow!

The captain swung the boat left as she broke the surface again and this time I got a quick look. Humpback! Now it was time to wiggle my way to the rail trying not to throw any little ones overboard.

Humpbacks are identified by markings on their tail flukes and this whale was “fluking” regularly. I couldn’t see the side with the markings but the Naturalist on the bridge could and said it was a female named Niles. She has a squiggly white line on her flukes that someone thought looked like the Nile River so she was named Niles.

We hung out with Niles for the rest of the tour watching her dive and feed. At one point she went under the stern and popped up again right next to us pushing her big head out so we got a glimpse of her nose. The Naturalist said she was filter feeding and that action helps drain the water out of her mouth leaving the food behind.

More and more boats began to arrive so reluctantly we had to leave Niles behind. She was the only Humpback we saw and because we had to go so far to find her we didn’t look for any others. It was time to turn around and head back to Boston.

Going back we were heading into the wind so I was glad I brought a hoodie with me. Most of the folks who had been sitting and standing here in the bow with me retired to the enclosed seats now that they’d seen their whale.

As we entered the inner harbor a plane flew low over the boat and came in for a landing at Logan Airport. The runway they came in on ran parallel to us so for a few minutes we paced the huge plane until it turned away to it’s gate.

It’s hard to believe it’s 5:30. The time went really fast. With the Aquarium closed I’m going to head over the Faneuil Hall to kill some time and let the subway clear out a bit before I head home.

A Whale of a Day

Posted on August 9, 2013August 9, 2013 by Dusty Roads

Monday past was a beautiful day, not too hot, not too cold and not humid. The weather forecast for Tuesday was more “iffy” so I made the always difficult decision to go to Boston on Monday.

Boston is a great city. I used to love going in to spend the day. That was before the “Big Dig”. No matter where you live you’ve probably heard a lot about Boston’s Big Dig. It was supposed to make travel into Boston easier and quicker. After years of traffic delays while they worked on it, it is now finished and traffic is worse! The expressway never clears out. 1 1/2 hour drive before is now 3 hours. The MBTA is crowded and hot. Not a pleasant experience and not much faster.

After much deliberation I prepared to drive into Boston and pay the exorbitant parking fees ($40-$50 for the day depending on which garage wasn’t full) but as I neared RT 128 I turned on the WBZ traffic on the 3’s and learned that even at 10:30 am the expressway was still tied up. The residual backup was all the way back onto RT 128. So change of plans, I went to Quincy Adams station on the Redline and took the “T” in.

To get to my destination, Aquarium station, I rode the Red line to Park St. where I changed to the green line to get to Government Center Station where I changed to the Blue Line to get to the Aquarium stop. Arrival time…1pm. 2 hours from parking at 11am to arrival at 1pm.

I had a combo ticket for a whale watch at 2pm and admission to the aquarium. I had to dash into the Aquarium where I had 1/2 hour before boarding.

I grabbed a hot dog as I ran out the doors to get in line to board the catamaran.

That was an expensive 30 minute visit to the Aquarium. I won’t do that again.

They crammed a lot of people onto the boat. There was minimal seating outside. Most seating was inside so everyone tended to line the railings. A family with very active children offered me a seat. The mother said “you might as well take it, they will never sit still.” That gives you some idea of the atmosphere. 🙂

As we left Boston Harbor we passed Boston Light, with a glimpse of Graves Light beyond it.

Then came Minot Ledge light.

We also saw the Nantucket Light Ship.

We were on our way to Stellwagon bank, an underwater ledge that is a prime feeding ground for humpback whales. The southern end of the banks is near Provincetown on Cape Cod. That was where we went with Captain John’s Whale Watch and saw the fin backs.

I’m hoping since the New England Aquarium Whale Watch stresses the humpback whales that we’ll actually see some this time. If we do, I wonder if I’ll get close enough to the rail to get any pictures. In the meantime I will enjoy the boat ride.

Hump (back) Day

Posted on August 7, 2013August 7, 2013 by Dusty Roads

Whale Watching

Posted on August 1, 2013August 1, 2013 by Dusty Roads

A friend asked me what whale watching was like. The question caught me off guard. I was on my way to Plymouth to do exactly that, take a Whale Watch trip with Capt’n John.

As we pulled out of Plymouth Harbor I looked around at all the people on the boat and thought about the question. It’s a lot like fishing. You go out with your bait , toss in your line and …wait and wait…and wait and if you’re lucky you get a bite and if you’re really lucky you get a fish.

Well when you go whale watching you get on a boat and ride, and ride and ride some more. Finally someone spots a spout or blow and the boat slows down. Now you wait in one spot while everyone looks around the boat to see if the whale is going to surface any place close. If your lucky you’ll see another blow and maybe a back.

The jackpot or whale watching’s equivalent of landing the fish is having the huge mammal cruise along side the boat giving you a real good look. To borrow a phrase from Animal Planet’s show Call of the Wildman; “That’s live action , Baby!”

Just off the tip of Cape Cod we got we got our first blow with the Pilgrim Tower of Provincetown in the background. Several Minke Whales were passing through. Minke whales are one of the smallest of the baleen whales, growing to only 24-26 ft. Baleen whales are filter feeders. They strain water though the baleen hairs and Krill and other small marine creatures are captured there. Hard to believe feeding this way can result in such a large animal.

They were small and kept their distance (kind of like a nibble in fishing). It was enough to get everyone excited but not close enough for pictures. So we motored on.

It didn’t take too much longer before we got another blow. This time it was a Fin Back Whale and there was more than one. The naturalist kept telling us that the fin backs were the greyhounds of whales around here (Massachusetts) but they didn’t seem to be in a big rush. They cruised along near the surface doing shallow dives and short blows.

At one point one of them cruised right next to the boat . You could actually see it as it began to come to the surface which made timing the picture for when it surfaced pretty easy.

The naturalist was using the size of our boat to estimate the length of the whales. She said they were all around 80 ft. long.

I don’t know how many different whales we saw. I lost track.

I checked Capt. John’s web sites but they didn’t post our trip. 🙁 No humpbacks today. They are my favorite. When they dive you get the classic tail flukes but when Fin Backs dive there’s no tail. It makes me think of a submarine.