Some Friendly Humpback Whales

Nine's 2008 calf coming in for a close look

The last few days have been very interesting on the Bay of Fundy. We have seen a few humpback whales move closer to Brier Island and we are documenting new individuals every day. To date, we have documented 53 individual humpback whales including 8 new calves. The latest to be brought to the Bay was Nine and her calf. Nine has only been sighted here one other year and that was in 2006 and she soon became a favourite among all of the crew because she turned out to be a very friendly whale often approaching the boats in curious behaviour. Her calf has also learned this behaviour from its mother and was very curious of our boats, the Cetacean Search and the Mega Nova. The calf would spyhop and roll and its eye appeared to be on the occupants on the boats. It truly is an amazing experience when a whale chooses to do this and something you'll never forget!

Our anniversary day was very successful. We celebrated our 22nd year of whale watching by offering an amazing discount which will be offered again on August 22 and September 20, 2008. The price per person is $22 + tax, a very good opportunity to see these whales in their own habitat. On July 22nd, it was very windy and choppy but we were able to get all of our cruises out that day. We documented a few new whales such as Littlespot, Lagoon, and Fan. Shark was active much to our delight. She would roll on her side and slap her long pectoral flippers on the surface of the water in a resounding smack. It is not known why these whales do this but there are many theories such as for communication, feeding purposes or to knock parasites off the flippers.

On Wednesday, our cruises were privileged to be visited by Lacuna an adult male who has been coming to the Bay of Fundy since 2003. He treated the Cetacean Search as if it were a bath toy, pushing on it with his nose. We were never in any danger, humpback whales are after all our gentle giants.

The fog still looms over us but our trips have been phenomenal!