The Whales

The whales were incredible! It took a couple of hours to get to the far side of the bank, which is more or less in the centre of the Boston Bay. This was an area that whales had been seen earlier in the week. The boat was just about full with an open top deck and enclosed cabin - it could seat about 100. There was a galley in the cabin serving beer, spirits and hot dogs, sandwiches, etc.

Provincetown boasts a marine research place which studies the whales and they provide a naturalist to give you the low down on the beasts. They have free trips on the boat in return for their guidance and it gives them the chance to study the creatures. They identify individuals primarily by their tail markings. We eventually found a group of around 30 diving for worm like creatures off the far side of the bank. They are first spotted from their spouts, which are more like mist than hose pipes! You can also see the splashing. We bobbed around in the area for about an hour, occasionally moving for a better position. It was bloody cold with the wind and the boat was bobbing up and down like a good 'un.

Two younger whales were performing 'breaches' where they come out of the water kind of horizontally and roll in the air, crashing back in on their backs. This was always at a distance from the boat! Also difficult to capture with the camera as you not only have to be looking in the right direction, you have to click the shutter at the right time too!

Normally the sort of things you would see, often quite close to, would be 2 or 3 whales, with just their backs and air hole showing. Then they would dive down, and if you were lucky, the tail would flip up in characteristic fashion.

All the whales were hump backs, though other types are seen. The trip back was a bit hairy, the boat heading intot he wind and crashing through the waves. Quite often the spray washed over the open deck, so most people came inside - including me to get warm! - a few people cowered behind the wheel house and some on the aft lower deck (where they could have a fag!) - amazingly no one was ill (not that I noticed), but there was one really spectacular roll where the galley had some problems with bouncing hot dogs!

Anyway here goes with the pics, some shots are not surprisingly better than others, so the best ones first!

4 shots of breaching whales

2 really good shots!