We traveled to Jefferies ledge on Friday and Saturday with mixed results since it was a little foggy out there. Sunday got rained out even though the whales are already wet.
On Friday we saw a couple of deep diving Finbacks that were doing long dives. A Finback dive can be 5 to 20 minutes and they are fast swimmers and can resurface a few miles away from where they last dove. They are not the breath holding champs that reward goes to the Sperm whale. More about that in a later blog.
But we did spot a ocean sunfish for the first time this season. An ocean sun fish can grow up to 13 feet across and weight up to 4000 pounds. It feeds mostly on jellyfish and can lay more than 300 million eggs at a time.
The Saturday trip brought gray seals, north atlantic white side dolphins and a puffin. We are seeing more puffins in the area as each year progresses. But the whales were hiding in the fog for the day. To let everyone know, if "Nick's Chance" doesn't spot whales that day everyone on board gets a non-sighting pass to come back anytime for another try. There is no expiration date on the pass. Since whales are a wild creature we can't call ahead and ask them where they are, but we do have a lot of fishing friends that tell us what they have in there area to help us narrow down the field. We don't get skunked very often but it does happen from time to time. We get clients back the next week, the next month or a couple years later. Most of the returning passengers remember us! The crew doesn't change very often for year to year, since we always have a good time together.
The picture is two north atlantic white side dolphins playing in the boat wake! They are fun to watch.
So join us for a trip this summer.
The website is wwww.firstchancewhalewatch.com. Call us at 207.967.5507
