After two full survey days, it was nice to have Saturday to catch up on office work and have a team meeting. Everyone went to bed pretty early because the weather for the next few days was looking great, and we needed to be well-rested and ready for it.



























So, on Sunday we pushed off the dock at 6:45 AM and ventured out into the Bay of Fundy. We've been noticing how few harbor porpoise we've been seeing- nothing to be be alarmed about, but usually our journey across the Grand Manan Channel yields a significant number of these little guys. After a few quiet survey hours, we started seeing right whale blows around 10 AM. Monica was our whale watcher for the day, working to identify individuals and communicate to the photographers and person at the helm. Some of the whales had not been seen on our prior surveys, and most of the whales were behaving pretty chill- not associating with each other, and briefly logging at the surface before going on 10 minute dives. However, the whales were scattered and it was not too easy to follow individuals.


























At one point in the day, Dropcloth (Catalog #1271) was seen. Dropcloth is a male who was first seen in 1978, but we don't know how old he is. He still needs to be biopsy darted for genetics, and although we tried to obtain a sample, we were not able to. Hopefully next time! We were, however, able to collect our second poop sample for the season. We were able to smell it before finding it, but got to scoop it up before it sank.


























Around 4:15 PM, we wrapped things up and put the cameras away, but not before having photographed approximately 40 right whales! As we were surveying back through the Basin, very obvious fin whale blows were seen in the distance. We estimated eight fin whales traveling together, stampeding through the water. It was a fantastic sight, and we spent a short time with them before continuing back home. Check out the video below for a little taste:



Our attempts to survey far east on Monday with "light winds" were foiled by strong winds- after two hours on survey, we decided to turn around and head back home. Arriving back in Lubec, we had a meeting about our upcoming offshore voyage to Roseway Basin. On Friday, a team of six will head out for a two week long survey, so there is much to do before our departure!

- Marianna

This morning we left the dock around 7:15 AM, slightly later than usual to avoid any lingering fog. We were all thrilled to finally get back on the water, but encountering some of our favorite things made the day even more amazing.



Around 9:30 AM, we photographed our first right whale! Everywhere we looked, there were right whales. Typically when we hang in one area for a while, we start encountering whales that we've already seen that day, but we were pleasantly surprised to have new whale after new whale appear while not having moved very far.



We worked whales straight from 9:30 AM til 4:15 PM. The whale watchers lettered a total of 45 right whales! A few of them were duplicate sightings, but this is still the largest quantity of right whales we've seen in one day in the Bay of Fundy in a long time.



We saw many familiar faces, like Catalog #3810 (pictured above), Dropcloth (Catalog #1271), Alien (Catalog #2630), and Caterpillar (Catalog #3503). More photos of whales will be posted soon- at time of posting, they were still being downloaded/resized/uploaded from the field cameras.



At one point in the day, friends/colleagues who sailed from Marion, MA to the Bay of Fundy caught up with us in their beautiful sailboat. Spending much of their time studying whales, they were enjoying seeing so many right whales from a more relaxed state of mind. After a short chat, they handed off a container of homemade brownies that they baked on their sailboat! This special treat was definitely welcomed and gave us energy to power through the rest of the day.



The smell of chocolate was soon masked by the smell of whale poop- something whale researchers love, maybe some even more than chocolate? Whale poop has proven itself to be quite the goldmine, as these samples can tell us about a whale's reproductive and stress hormone levels, among other things. A net was quickly dipped in to collect these feces, and we know our colleagues at the NEAq's John H. Prescott Laboratory will be so happy to have another right whale sample to run tests on.



We're looking forward to finishing our office work for the day so we can go to sleep and do it all again tomorrow!

-Marianna