What a great day! We left for our 2:00 pm departure with plans of heading offshore in search of humpback whales. On our way out we found a minke whale between White and Nubble Island. We didn't spend too much time because we wanted get out and search for humpback whales. We made our way to the Grand Manan Channel, the traditional fall ebb tide feeding ground for humpbacks but we had no luck. As we continued around the edge of the Owen Basin we saw a blow and our captain quickly informed us it was a very rare North Atlantic Right Whale (photos below)! What a priveledge, with only 300-350 remaining, they are one of the most endangered large whales in the world. We don't usually see right whales on our regular whale watches as their feeding/courting ground is in the open Bay of Fundy, about 35-40 miles from St. Andrews, and is out of our regular, 3-hour whale watch. With a few looks (right whales can stay under a long time and be a little difficult to watch) we continued our search for humpbacks. We found our "Unknown" (above left and right) in the same area as the right whale so with some great looks at the humpback we also got a few more looks at the right whale. We could see more humpback blows down in the Channel but we were running out of time and had to make our way back to St. Andrews. On our way past the northern tip of Campobello Island we saw another minke whale and got some great close looks. What an amazing trip!
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