Whale Watch From Boston Harbor

On May 31 I went on a whale watch along with my wife, my mother-in-law, and my son Matthew. We selected the 2:00 pm whale watch tour that is run by the New England Aquarium. Prior to boarding the ship, a relatively modern catamaran that can reach the Stellwagen Bank Marine Sanctuary in about 90 minutes, we were told that the seas would be a bit rough. This is a bit of a concern for me, as I have experienced sea-sickness once before on a whale watch and didn’t want to go through that misery again.

Luckily, I had no problem at all this time, although there were several people on board that were having a tough time of it. About 90 minutes after departure the on-board naturalist began pointing out whale sightings, and plenty of them. Her blog entry for our trip is located here.

As would be typical with a digital point-and-camera, it was virtually impossible to get pictures of the whales. The delay between pushing the button and the actual photograph being taken meant that at best, I would get an occasional photo of a whale’s reentry splash. But the day itself was spectacular. There was at least four humpback whales present for the entire hour we spent at Stellwagen Bank, and the whales did enough breaching to satisfy a half dozen whale watch tours.

This was the fourth whale watch I’ve been on–three in New England and one in British Columbia where we were watching Orcas, which turned out to be a particularly spectacular event. Yesterday’s trip was definitely the best of the three east coast trips I’ve been on. Out on the water the weather was great, even though it had rained for a while in Boston during that time. When we returned to the dock we met up briefly with some friends and enjoyed looking at the double-rainbow that was suspended above Boston Harbor. It was a great trip!