Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Yep, I really do LOVE my job

Hello everyone, I know this is starting to sound "regular" for our sightings but it is NOT....we had another amazing afternoon with north Atlantic right whales!  We had word that maybe the rights had moved back South into the Bay of Fundy but our captain decided to look for himself, and as the tide had turned he decided to take a run offshore....and are we ever glad he did.  We found a mother and calf right whale pair about a mile inside of South Wolf first, we saw them once but choose to leave them be and make our way further out.  Here are some shots of the cow and calf pair (1 of 21 calves born in the world this year).

UPDATE:  Mom has been IDed as Legato RW#1802, and is actually a NEW mom and calf to the population....so that makes 22 calves for the 2011 season!!  


Mom




As we made our way past South Wolf Matt started see lots of blows a few miles ahead so we slowly made our way out.  There must have been ~15 right whales out there this afternoon, including a small SAG or surface active group....enjoy some more pics





















Thanks for checking in today....no one can know for sure how long these rights will be close enough for us to see them out of St. Andrews....it has been such a privilege to seem them every day!

Cheers,
Danielle

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

You know you love your job when...

Hello everyone, you know you love your job when you go into work....just for fun....on your day off, yep, I went whale watching today!  With the right whale sightings we have been having how could I not go out....and today was another fantastic day!

Here are some photos from our 10 am departure















Our afternoon departure was not only filled with incredible right whale sightings.....here are some pics....


This whale was only breathing out of the left blowhole, possibly due to an injury to the right side







BUT...we also had this amazing encounter with a basking shark!!






AND...we had a very brief encounter with an ocean sunfish, Mola mola




Here is a video of the right whales from today, the right whale swimming alone on this video was injured somehow, a lot of scars on the whale, the right hand side seems almost to be compressed or "dented" and the whale was also breathing only out of the left blowhole.



THANKS for checking in today....No one can say how long these right whales will be feeding off and around the Wolves, there were at least 30 whales out there today.  Again, this is a VERY special sighting and nothing we would expect to see out of St. Andrews as we would usually have to travel many more miles out into the open Bay of Fundy to see rights.  We will enjoy them while they are close!