| 2013 023 18- We get mugged by eight whales two of whom try to climb in the boat + 4 fluke IDs |
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| Written by Andrew Stevenson | ||||
 
We saw plenty of whales today (DDC) and at one point had six whales coral us for an hour and twenty minutes as we bobbed like a cork on large ocean swells. I was able to film these whales circling the boat in ever tighter circles. Occasionally they would swim away but every time I got out of the water the whales were back again. When I dressed warmly two whales seemed particularly annoyed that I had exited the water and at one point both whales spy-hopped together less that ten feet from the boat as if trying to peer over the gunnels. None of our cameras had a wide enough lens to capture that spectacular event but below are some of the other images we took today. Roger Etcheberry has matched our 1023 upper left seen in Newfoundland waters July 11th 2011 in a photograph taken by Debbie in Witless Bay, see her Flickr site: WBR562 . We have also matched the whale upper right as a Gulf of Maine whale known as Quill.
    Despite the number of whales we only managed four fluke IDs because of the high ocean swells. If they whales flukes weren't disappearing from sight in a trough, we were submerged in a valley of water. These whales seemed to be a mix of both males and females and were not a competive group
Tomorrow I give two presentations are BUEI at 6.30 and 8.30. Tickets are available on www.bdatix.com
 And here is Charlie's photo of the two whales after they had finshed spy-hopping and had slipped back into the water a little further away from the boat where he could get them in his camera lens!
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