Tuesday we left the dock in Provincetown with little visibility due to fog.  As we came upon Race point Beach we had our first sighting; at this point three different minke whales surfaces off our bow with in 300 yards.  One of these minke whales traveled alongside our starboard side giving us excellent looks.  After spending a few minutes with these minke whales we did push out of the area heading toward the north-east.  As we traveled the visibility grew worse.  At some points we were down to 100 feet visibility.  This made spotting very very difficult.

Once we made our way to the east side of Stellwagen Bank, Captain Ted slowed our speed and started to drift through the area.  Everyone was standing at the railing scanning all around the vessel.  I informed passengers that we were going to travel slowly through the area and listen for the whales because the fog was so thick.

After 15 to 20 minutes of remaining quiet we caught a quick glimpse of a black object!  It was a whale; this was such a relief!!  We moved over to the area that we had just spotted the whale and waited until the animal resurfaced.  If was only a minute or so until we heard the powerful exhalation of the whale at the surface.  With just one look we were able to identify this whale as Nile.  Nile is a mature female humpback whale (26 years old).  It was quite nice to see Nile!

Nile was being very low-key, she was resting at the surface (a behavior we call logging) and then every so often she would spread her pectoral flippers out wide, arch her back and lift her fluke high out of the water to head down for a 2 to 3 minute dive.

After spending a good amount of time with Nile we ventured off to another blow or visible exhalation off our bow.  As we moved over toward the animal we learned that it was actually two humpback whales and it was a mother and calf pair!  This pair was Valley and her 2013 calf!  We watched as these two humpbacks traveled and rested side by side and then ever few minutes would arch their backs and lift their flukes.  At one point Valley and her calf did a synchronized fluke out dive.  It was an amazing sight to see, and defiantly brought tears to my eyes as well a some of our passengers.  We are extremely lucky to be able to watch this young whale that is not even a year old!

While watching Valley and her calf we spotted another whale resting off in the distance, so once Valley and her calf headed back down for a dive we pushed out of the area to grab a look.  As we mad our way closer we got a good look at the dorsal fin of the humpback whale and could identify the whale as Furrows.

Furrows didn’t stay on the surface very long, so we said goodbye to the 4 humpback whales and made our way back toward Provincetown.