On Thursday several eyewitnesses described seeing the blows of two whales close to each other, one blowing just after the other and one being smaller. These were pretty reliable reports by Bermudians who had seen spouting whales on the South Shore and knew what they were looking at. There certainly seems to be a line to the left of the 'spout' almost like a whale's 'footprints'.

This report and the photo are interesting although not having an exposed back makes it difficult to know for sure if this was from a whale or not. Looks like it could almost be the tell-tale 'V' spout of a right whale. Too hard  to tell form the picture though, since there is no context or scale. I'm not sure what else they/it could be unless they were miniature water spouts.  

We do start seeing humpbacks around Bermuda, mostly offshore on Challenger or Argus. But these two whales, if they were whales, were apparently just hundreds of yards off North Shore, which is unusual in itself. The water here is 50-70 feet deep and remains shallow for some miles until our outer reefs. What were two whales doing so far inside our reefs? I have seen archival records of humpbacks being seen regularly inside our reefs hundreds of years ago, and even inside the Great Sound. I have heard anecdotal reports from others who have sworn that they too have seen whales off our North Shore inside our reefs in past years.

Hearing about a whale being sighted so close to North Shore, Elsa and Somers want to take a look at the Flatt's public dock to see if we can seen any even closer to shore. When we don't find any octopuses or whales, we head in to the Aquarium for a quick fix where Elsa photographs a shark, barracuda and lion fish.

And Elsa's self-portrait.