EKG and a Save Passamaquoddy Bay Trip!

Hello everyone, it's Danielle with Quoddy Link Marine. This morning we did a special trip to support the effort to Save Passamaquoddy Bay. We took many locals of Charlotte County and some supporters from across the border out into Head Harbour Passage. This passage way is at the heart of a battle to prevent LNG tankers from entering Passamaquoddy Bay. Head Harbour Passage is such a vibrant and alive place, the strong tidal currents create upwelling, bringing the cold, nutrient rich water from the ocean floor to the surface which feeds the plankton, which feeds in the krill, which in turn feeds the herring and the herring feeds most of the predators including seals, porpoise, many seabirds and whales. In my 7 years with Quoddy Link Marine we have documented finback (including a mother and calf pair) and minke whales in Head Harbour Passage every summer and on a few very special occasions we have seen humpback and even a critically endangered North Atlantic right whale right up Head Harbour Passage! It is such an amazing place and thank you to all who joined this morning, your support is greatly appreciated!


Our afternoon trip was a regularly scheduled whale watch which turned out to be a Hat Trick! We saw EKG, a humpback whale we have been watching since 2006, 3 finback whales, all close to the entrance of Head Harbour Passage and a very young minke whale between White and Nubble Island. It was a great trip! Below is EKG, note the distinct upturned flukes.

Thanks for checking in today. Tomorrow is our last day, they are calling for some NE winds but I hope we can get out. Cheers!

Humpback, Finback and Minke Whales...All Still Here!!

Hello all, it's Danielle with Quoddy Link Marine, still whale watching and still seeing lots of whales. Today we went out in some crazy October fog but with a little help with the visibility we were able to find 2 humpback whales, EKG (left) and an unknown we also saw on October 11th. Both humpbacks were great to watch, this beautiful tail raise from EKG and the unknown whale did a few tail breaches and rolled over a few times and showed us "his" pectoral flippers (no photos of that...raining). On our way back we stopped with a few minke whales at the mouth of Head Harbour Passage and then we found a finback whale, between White and Nubble Island and we got to see a beautiful lunge feed! What an amazing trip....so much more than we could ever ask for at the middle of October. The other sightings are still great as well, there are so many bald eagles around as well as many species of seabirds. We are also seeing lots of seals, both grey (top) and harbour (bottom).



Thanks so much for checking in today, we have 3 departures left;

Friday, October 17th @ 10:00 am

Saturday, October 18th @ 2:30 pm

and

Sunday, October 19th @ 1:00 pm

Come and join us!! Cheers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello everyone, it's Danielle with Quoddy Link Marine with a quick update of today's sightings. We decided to have a whale watch this morning instead of this afternoon so we could give our guests enough time to have their turkey dinner!! We headed right offshore this morning and we passed some finbacks on our way out but when we got there we found EKG and the young humpback that was disentangled in December of 2007 off Grand Manan (pictured below). After we spent some time with the humpbacks (and got a very close look at EKG!) we made our way back towards the islands where we stopped with 4 finback whales. Our passengers were amazed at the size and power of the finback whales, the second largest whale in the world, and the ones we were watching were at least the length of the boat at 55 feet! There was also tonnes of birds this morning and we stopped at The Spectacles where we saw 7 bald eagles!

We still have a few more trips this week;

Tuesday, October 14th-Thursday, October 16th at 1:00 pm

Friday, October 17th at 10:00 am

Sunday, October 19th at 1:00 pm

Thanks for checking in today, Cheers!

Another Great Day on the Bay!

Hello there, it's Danielle with Quoddy Link Marine back from another amazing October day on the Bay of Fundy. With great weather again today we made our way directly offshore in search of humpback whales in the same area where we were yesterday. We found 5 individuals, 4 of which I got tail shots of to ID (we had Spinnaker, EKG, the December entanglement whale, as well as the unknown with the hooked dorsal). We had a very close look at EKG, the photo on the left shows "his" double blowhole and the tubercles (the bumps on the rostrum, each one has a thick hair growing out of it which serves a sensory function). On our way back to St. Andrews we stopped with 3 finback whales and a minke whale! The 2 photos below are Spinnaker (top) and the unknown whale with a hooked dorsal fin (below).




I also wanted to include this photo of EKG and Spinnaker travelling together. Baleen whales do not live in family groups but they can be social animals and form unstable groups which can last for a few minutes or even a few days.

Thanks for checking in today. We are going to be running whale watching trips all week, there are lots of whales around and we aren't quite ready to stop! Come and join us and see the Bay of Fundy with Quoddy Link Marine!!

I do LOVE my job!

Hello everyone, it's Danielle with Quoddy Link Marine with some amazing sightings to report. It's so hard to believe that it is the second week of October but with the first day in a few with calm seas we sent Matt out on our Scout Boat to see what he could find a little further from home. With a boat load of eager passengers we got a call from Matt that he had found at least 5-6 humpback whales and about the same number of fin whales all within about 1/4 mile of each other! Needless to say we made our way directly offshore towards our Scout Boat. We passed a few finback whales off the northern tip of Campobello Island but we had to put "blinders" on and continue offshore but it was well worth it! There were blows in every direction....both finback and humpback whales....at one point we had 5 humpback whales on the forward right hand side of the boat and a finback on the other, and then a finback surfaced so close to the boat that a few words that are usually not part of my interpretation came out! In my 7 years I don't remember seeing so many humpbacks and finbacks on one trip. Now to the details.....As I have mentioned before we photograph the humpback whales we see (humpbacks are IDed by the pigmentation of black and white on the underside of their flukes) and I was very busy today. I managed to get photos of 6 individual humpback whales (I am SURE I missed a few). 3 are ones I could identify, 2 are new (one of the new whales is pictured above left) and 1 is a familiar "face" from last season! The photo below is EKG.

This is Cork, a 6 year old female humpback.

This is one of the new humpbacks we saw today...also a familiar face (I'm almost positive, I have the photo into PCCS to be confirmed)...this is Spinnaker, a 4 year old female.

This is the other new humpback that I do not recognize.

We also saw the humpback that was disentangled in December/07 off Grand Manan. I have included a drawing of the entanglement (the entanglement was made worse as it happened during a winter storm). This whale has yet to be matched to a previously catalogued whale, if it cannot be matched it will be put up for naming next spring.

I wanted to leave you with a photo I took the other day of 2 minke whales travelling side-by-side, not something we see very often. Thanks for checking in today, I will keep you posted as I hear about the ID's of our new whales....and I hope to have more great sightings for you all tomorrow! Cheers.

Six Humpback Whales on Our 2:00 pm Departure!

Hello everyone, it's Danielle with Quoddy Link Marine with some great sightings to report. Today on our 2pm departure we sighted 6 individual humpback whales as well as 4 fin whales! Also, of those 6 humpbacks, 2 were new individuals to us. With word from Fundy Tide Runners, a fellow whale watching company out of St. Andrews that there were humpbacks in the same area where we were yesterday afternoon we made our way directly offshore, even passing 2 large fin whales on the way! The sea conditions were certainly not perfect but with some great passengers who were willing to hold on we spent about an hour and a half watching 6 humpbacks and 2 fin whales in the offshore area. There very well may have been more humpbacks around, there were many blows in all directions but I did photograph 6 individual humpbacks. The first one here is a new whale to us and I have sent the photos down to Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies to see if we can get a positive ID.

This is Cork, a 6 year old female humpback we are very familiar with at Quoddy Link Marine.

This is the humpback we saw for the first time yesterday that was seriously entangled last December and rescued by the Campobello Whale Rescue Team. Have a look at yesterdays post for more info.
Here is an unknown that we saw yesterday as well as on September 21st.

This is EKG, a young whale we have been watching since 2006.

This last whale is our 2nd new whale of the day. We never got to see the fluke so all I got was a shot of the dorsal fin but as the dorsal fin is different from whale to whale I do know this is a new individual for us! Hopefully we can get a tail shot and see who this is in the next few days.

Thanks for checking in today. I hope to have more great news for you over the next week. Cheers!

4 Humpback Whales in One Trip!

Hello everyone, it's Danielle with Quoddy Link Marine back from another great fall day! It's hard to believe that our whale watching season is scheduled to end in 1 week and I have a new humpback whale to report....and we saw 4 individual humpbacks on our 2pm departure. Our afternoon trip took us our towards to Wolves Bank where Matt, on our Scout Boat was reporting 2, maybe 3 humpback whales as well a few finback whales. On our way out we were stopped, unexpectedly, by a humpback whale. It turn out to be the unknown we had on September 21st on our 2pm trip, pictured below. This whale has yet to be matched to an individual in the catalogue, I will let you know if that changes.

With a few good looks at this young humpback we made our way out towards our Scout Boat. As we arrived we found EKG and a new humpback whale! As we got a better look at this new humpback we very quickly saw some serious injury marks, I have included a photo below in which you can see the scarring on the tail stock. This young humpback has been IDed as humpback that was disentangled in December of 2007 off Grand Manan! This humpback has not been matched to a previous entry in the catalogue as of yet but with these new images the researchers at PCCS are hoping to make a positive match. This was the first sighting of him since his successful release. I have included a news clip that was posted on You Tube by IFAW.

Thanks for checking in today, I have included a photo below of Cork (the 4th humpback we saw today) and our Scout Boat. I don't want to forget to mention that we also had some amazing finback whale sightings on both our morning charter and afternoon departure!

Another Amazing Day with Cork and EKG!

Hello everybody, it's Danielle back from the cold waters of the Bay of Fundy with video and pictures from another incredible day! On our 2pm departure John decided to take us immediately offshore in search of the humpback whales that we spent time with yesterday. As we arrived, Fundy Tide Runners, a fellow whale watching company out of St. Andrews had located EKG, a humpback whale we saw yesterday for the first time in 2008. EKG was travelling from "his" flood tide feeding grounds towards the Grand Manan Chanel, which has been known to be an ebb tide feeding ground for humpbacks in the fall. As "he" started travelling he would stop every now and then and roll over and slap his 6-8 foot pectoral flippers on the surface! It was our first sighting of pectoral slapping this season. This is a normal surface behaviour for humpbacks and it was awesome to see! The Zodiac that you see in the videos is Fundy Tide Runners.

After spending some time with EKG we spotted another humpback towards the Chanel and when we arrived we found Cork and......just like yesterday she decided to get curious with the boat! Today I took some video from the lower deck. The second video is Cork fluking, or raising her tail, after her close encounter.

On our way back towards St. Andrews we stopped just off the entrance to Head Harbour Passage at the northern tip of Campobello Island with 1 fin whale and a few minke whales. Everyone was feeding very happily on herring. The finback did a few lunge feeds, one very close to the boat. I didn't manage to get any pictures or videos...I tried though.

Thanks for checking in, today was another fabulous fall whale watch. Check back often for more updates with Quoddy Link. Cheers!