Pictures from a different point of view

Captain Gary piloting the Whale Boat "Nick's Chance"


We have had the good fortune to have a series of pictures shot by a photographer from the Philadelphia area and his name is Julian Kornacki. He is a destinations wedding and portrait photographer. You can check out his website at http://www.juliankfoto.com/

We are showing a series of pictures that he took on a recent trip within the past 2 days.

Mr. Kornacki used a fisheye lense to take these pictures, kind of fitting since we were on the ocean looking for whales. He was trying to get a series of photos showing the life on the boat while enroute to the whale feeding grounds.

Waves crashing by the port side.

People relaxing in the sun while enroute.

The stern of the boat in the following shots. We are moving at about 14 knots.

People sitting on the bow looking for the great white whale.

Enjoying the day

Back at the dock! You can see the people unloading on the port side towards the rear of

"Nick's Chance."

I would like to thank Mr Julian Kornacki in sharing his pictures. Don't forget to check out his website at http://www.juliankfoto.com/.

If you have been on Nick's Chance or Kylie's Chance and have pictures to share please email them to us at firstchancewhalewatch@gmail.com. We will post them on the blogspot.

Thanks Julian!

He has promised to send us more in the coming days.

It's a wonderful whale world

These past days have been unbelievable. The whale sightings have been off the chart. We have been having breaching whales left and right or port and starboard off "Nick's Chance". The bubble feeding has been amazing. At one time we just stopped the boat and were surrounded by 12 to 20 Humpback whales. Also the Fin back whales have been very active, one group had a posse of white sided dolphins following them. I do have pictures and video of a lot of this so be patience and we get them up on the site as soon as possible. Nicole has her work cut out for her in trying to identified all these whales.

So come on out and join us. We have been filling up the boats so reservations are important.

We are at 4 Western Ave, Lower Kennebunk, Maine, 04043
Call us at 207.967.5507

Who will stop the rain?

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

Finally the sun is out...

Well it has been over a week of rain! Hopefully is seas will calm down and we will be able to get back out on the ocean again. Cross your fingers and hope for good weather ahead. We have been out passing out whale watch brochures in York County during all this rain. I think we have hit most of the lodgings and campgrounds but if you can think of one that hasn't been covered let us know.

This image was taken last year as we returned from a trip, in which we passed thru a small rain shower. You can see the wonderful rainbow as the sun was setting in the west.

A Humpback called Pinball

Hey we had a great day out on the water on Saturday! It was so beautiful out and glass-like surface with a small gentle roll. We found whales on the northern end and back side of Jeffreys. I wasn't able to get a lot of photos as the whales we traveling in search for food. We came across a Minke whale only 6 miles from shore, but it was heading in the wrong direction for us to really take a look at. A passenger made the sighting out on the northern end of Jeffreys and it turned out to be the Humpback whale named Pinball. She is a well-known resident whale first sighted in 1992 and she has been seen for at least 10 years since then. She was traveling in search for feed, as there wasn't a lot on the fish finder, but we did get a few close encounters. There were a lot of other boats around the horizon, tuna boats, and fishing boats. We decided to head towards the south were more blows were sighted. We came across 3 other Humpbacks. Again these whales were hard to get a good look at, as they took were in search for food. I was able to get a fluke photograph of one of the Humpbacks, however it is from a long distance and the quality is not so great. I am not sure about the name of this Humpback right away but am going to try to figure it out. There was also a Finback in the area and another Humpback whale. But we were out of time and had to head back in. It was a great day to be out on the water and were lucky to see such a great number of whales, seabirds, and Sargasso seaweed!

We had a woman on the boat and it was her 4th year out on our boat! We take pride in finding out that some of our passengers come back year after year to experience another great whale watch on our boat. Every trip and every day is different and it is great to hear that passengers enjoy our boat and crew enough to come back year after year. We are hoping to schedule a few more trips this week so feel free to call to find out our schedule!

Mother Nature Rules

Well, this weekend reminded us that Mother Nature always has the upper hand. Nick' Chance didn't go out on Saturday due to weather conditions but we did go out on Sunday at 12:30pm. We had to wait for a half hour because it was dead low tide at Noon and we had to wait a bit to get more water under the boat so we could turn around in the river. Once in the Atlantic the seas were a bit high so the swells were breaking over the bow. At 15 miles out we ran into a pod of FinBack Whales diving for some food at about 300 feet. A basking shark was spotted but it didn't stay on the surface for very long.

The Scenic Lobster Tour was able to make it out both on Saturday and Sunday since it doesn't travel that far off shore. On Sunday we had a tour group from Pennsylvania which was made up of high school seniors on a final class trip/holiday before going onto college later this fall. They had a good time and the crew enjoyed their upbeat spirit. One remarked to the crew that it must be nice to have a job that didn't require you to wear shoes. Since one of the mates prefers the traction of bare feet on the deck while at sea.

There she blows.....

Well "Nick Chance" had a great day sighting whales on Sunday May 24, 2009. On the first trip of the season we spotted a group of Humpback whales approximately 24 miles off the coast of Maine. The coorindates were 43'04''.13 by 070'08''.457. The location was Jeffries Ledge in the Gulf of Maine. We had about 7 to 8 whales and one was a calf with their mother a male escort whale. More will be dicussed in later blogs what a male escort whale does.


There was tremendous amount of cheering and clapping from the passengers of the boat when the first humpback lifted their tail in the air as he/she was diving. For the next 45 minutes we had many close encounters of the whales coming up to the boat.

So keep checking in with us on the latest status of whale sightings out of Kennebunk, Maine

The next schedule trip is on Saturday May 30 at 10am.

Hope to see you in the near future.

Ahoy for now!

Gearing up for the Season

Well the 2009 Whale Season season is upon us! "Nick's Chance" heads out into the Gulf of Maine look for the Humpback whales that are in the area filling their stomachs up with old fashion New England Seafood. The first cruise of the season starts tomorrow May 24, 2009!

This blog site will tell you of the whales that we are seeing on our Whale Boat called "Nick's Chance" based out of Kennebunk, Maine. Also we will keep you informed what is happening on the scenic Lobster Cruise Boat "Kylie's Chance".

We will tell you of the fun times and interesting questions that we get during the course of the season.

Hopefully clients that have gone out with us will get on the blog site and leave their comments and stories of what they experienced.

So let's get started.