A Whaling Good Time

Happy 4th of July! Instead of fireworks, we decided to do something totally different. We took a whale watching tour that truly delighted us.

Our tour took us out into the ocean, further from land than either of us had ever been. We are used to lakes and rivers where you can see land somewhere. According to our captain, we were out there somewhere between Provincetown/Cape Cod and Glouster/Cape Ann. When we left Plymouth harbor, it was hot and sunny. The further we got out into the ocean, it became quite cool, overcast and foggy with little visibility.

When you take a tour like this, there is no guarantee that you will actually see whales. However, we were very fortunate and we saw several whales in two different locations. There are three types of whales in the Massachusetts' Atlantic waters: finbacks, minkes, and humpbacks. The whales in these pictures are humpbacks. We learned that humpbacks do not travel in pods as other species of whales will do, however, as you can see in the photo above, there were two humpbacks in reasonable proximity to each other. What we observed were these two whales working in tandem to corral the fish that they were trying to capture.

We got quite proficient at spotting whales, given our weather conditions. We learned that whales are getting ready to surface when you see their spout. When I figured this out, I knew to get the camera ready. Unfortunately, I never got a good shot of the spout. Another hint that they are getting ready to surface is that sea birds gather in a frenzy near the spout. The water turns turquoise and then, the whale's head comes out of the water. If you look carefully at the photo above, you can see the whale's mouth open, part of the baleen that filters the fish in and the water out, and the water streaming out from the sides of its mouth. What you can't see is that the bottom of the mouth can stretch out, like the pelican throat, to hold the fish filtered through the baleen. This whale was very close to the boat so it was very exciting to see all the action.
Fishing is quite a task for these behemoths. Humpbacks are around 4o feet long and weigh about 25 tons and need to eat a lot of fish to maintain those lovely figures. It is hard to get a good idea as to the size of this whale because there is nothing in the water or the horizon to give you a perspective of how big it is. We felt tiny around them.

Whales are pretty smart. They summer in the waters of Maine and Massachusetts and winter in the Caribbean. We did not hear whale sounds, but the naturalist narrator explained that they only give off the sounds in the Caribbean waters, I assume, for mating or parenting purposes. That was not explained.

And so it is the end... of the whale that is. In this photo, you can see some of the elements that I explained previously. At first, I thought the whale's head was emerging from the water but it is the hump, then the tail. We were told that the whale's name was Coral and is being studied by the marine biologists in the area. She is known by her white tail.

I wanted to mention the birds. We learned that these are not diving birds. They sit in the ocean like ducks would on a pond. Inevitably the whale will lose some of the fish and the birds are at ready to snatch the left overs. We wondered how many birds got too close and ended up as whale food appetizer.

When we returned to port, the sun was shining and it was hot as blazes. We did enjoy the natural air conditioning at sea. We decided to celebrate the holiday with lobster and steak. It is fun to splurge every once in a while.

As the afternoon progressed, the weather grew threatening. So, we headed to the cinema and saw The DaVinci Code once again. Having read the book, I had enjoyed the movie the first time, but Mel had been confused with all the action and plot twists. However, he found the movie much more enjoyable this time around because he understood the plot and knew where it was going.

For the first time in years, we missed fireworks. Earlier, we had decided not to go to Boston because of the threatening weather and because we were unsure of parking and finding our way back to Plymouth at night. We are in the deep woods. But we thought that we would go to Plymouth that had a concert and fireworks, too. The weather was not good and we didn't know where we could perch on a hill to overlook the harbor. The fireworks must have been good because we could hear them and we were at least 3 miles away. We did watch the Boston Pops though but were befuddled by the Aerosmith performance. Yes, we do like the music, but it just seemed odd for the 4th. And what was the deal with Dr. Phil and Robin? In Boston? Huh!?