After working so hard, the team felt lucky to have a full day off on Cape Sable Island. A local friend of the project, Wanda, was kind enough to take some of us grocery shopping for some essentials (eg: potato chips and chocolate bars). Since a few of us had never ventured beyond the dock at Daniel's Head, Wanda took us on a mini tour of the area, making stops at two of the shipyards where impressively large fishing vessels are built, a house where a fin whale skeleton was laid out to decorate the front yard, and of course, Tim Horton's for coffee and donuts! Some of the team attended a boat race later in the day, while others hung back to get some quiet reading time in. It was great to feel slightly more rested before tackling the last leg of our trip.




We left Daniel's Head at the crack of dawn the next day on August 24 to steam south towards the eastern edge of Roseway Basin. This day held few right whale sightings for us- strong winds and a swell obscured animals at the surface, making them difficult to track and collect photos. Two of the four whales we photographed were very familiar to us- Aphrodite (Catalog #1701) and Caterpillar (#3503).




The seas calmed overnight, and we woke on August 25 to a beautiful sea state 1. As soon as Philip and Marianna got on watch, blows were sighted and the rest of the crew were woken up to help with documentation. We had about five whales in close proximity all traveling in the same direction, but each surfacing at different times. Our photographers and whale watcher were kept on their toes- it was almost like playing that whac-a-mole arcade game! As we continued westerly on our survey, sightings became less frequent, and the rest of the day was pretty quiet.




Our final day on the western edge of Roseway Basin would also be a quiet one- only one right whale was seen! This young whale was also travelling, but we were able to collect photographs before he/she disappeared.




After long hours of survey with very few sightings to record, a small Kemp's Ridley turtle was spotted amongst some seaweed close to the Shelagh. Concerned due to its lack of movement, we turned around to check it out. It looked as though this turtle had been taste-tested, as teeth marks were seen on the carapice- we're guessing this is why the turtle appeared to be in poor health. Troubled but unable to help, we sadly had to leave this endangered turtle behind.




A wall of fog met us as we wrapped up our Roseway surveys, and soon we were travelling home under a starlit night. Captain Joe manned the helm round-the-clock as each of us took turns keeping watch with him. Arriving back at port on Campobello Island in the morning, the crew organized gear, inventoried non-perishables and packed our belongings. It would only be a matter of days before the second offshore journey would begin and the Shelagh would be surveying Roseway Basin once again...



-Marianna

We began the following day with an early deployment of our second acoustic buoy.  By this point we were a well-oiled machine, so it was quickly and successfully deployed before we hopped back on track to continue searching for whales.



After a brief fog interlude, we emerged to find our first whales of the day in the northern central area of Roseway Basin. The whales tended to be spread out in small aggregations and were only at the surface for short periods of time. In other words, they kept us very busy and made it as difficult as possible for us to work them. We did identify a handful of the whales as familiar faces from the Bay the previous week, including Aphrodite (Catalog#1701)- whose son we had seen on Roseway a few days prior!


Some other old friends were also around: Starboard (Catalog#3603) named for its missing right fluke, Marble (Catalog#2602) who was one of the handful of right whales documented in the Bay last season, and Skittle (Catalog#3260) named for its bowling pin/"skittle"-looking callosity.



For most of the day, there was shallow feed on the depth sounder (between 10-20 fathoms) and several whales were photographed with their mouth open, which suggests that they are finding some sustenance out on Roseway.





On our next offshore trip in September, we are planning to tow for plankton to find out specifically what all this feed in the water column actually is. We ended up with over 40 individual whales for the day and worked them until dusk, so our mac & cheese dinner that night felt particularly well-earned.

Our next two days out on the Shelagh were relatively quiet, but we did photograph a handful of humpback whales early one morning, as well as several right whales, including: Phantom (Catalog#3803), who was seen earlier this season in the Bay, and Fundy-frequent Morse (Catalog#1608).



By the afternoon on Day #4, the weather conditions had picked up to "sea state terrible," so we opted to head for our temporary home port at Cape Sable Island. Overall, it was an encouraging second leg to our Roseway adventure, as well as incredibly productive. Check back soon for an update on our final set of days out in the Basin...

After receiving two pop-up acoustic buoys from JASCO Applied Sciences and a much needed respite on Cape Sable Island from rough seas, we set out at a reasonable time on the 19th to begin our second leg of surveying Roseway Basin. A few hours into our transit to our northern track line, our eagle-eyed team on watch spotted a distant blow and flukes. It took a few more surfacings, but then our first Roseway right whale of the season popped up right off our port side! The whale was quickly identified as Eros (Catalog #3701), whose mom Aphrodite (#1701) had been seen the previous week in the Bay of Fundy.



After that, whale blows appeared to multiply on the horizon, so we happily had our hands full for the rest of the afternoon with numerous whales including: Catalog #3120 who graced us with his presence last September on Roseway; Contrail (#3512), named for a scar on its left fluke that looks like a rocket contrail; and Catalog #1716, an old male first sighted back in 1982!



By early evening, we decided to end the survey to begin our steam to the first pop-up acoustic buoy drop point. Since field work is anything but predictable, several right whales appeared close by, and because whale biologists have no self-control when it comes to photographing or documenting whales, we naturally went back to work. After another hour of working whales and a quick bite to eat, we started setting up for our first acoustic buoy deployment (more details to come in a later blog). Captain Joe and Philip provided most of the muscle to get the heavy anchor and buoy over the side of the boat, while the rest of us documented the event, scribbled down coordinates, relayed (yelled) info into the cabin, and smoothly drove the boat down seas.



All in all, it went off without a hitch just before 10pm and our slight reservations were assuaged when the buoy successfully pinged us back from the bottom of the ocean. The current plan is to retrieve both buoys at the end of our second Roseway trip in late September, so fingers crossed for crazy amounts of whale calls being recorded over the next month or so.

- Kelsey

Since 1998, Irving Oil has shown support for the recovery of the North Atlantic right whale by partnering with the New England Aquarium Right Whale Research Program and providing funding necessary to run our field research projects. In addition to their 2014 funding, this year Irving Oil ran a campaign on Facebook for our program. Facebook users could show support for right whales while also entering a contest for an Irving fuel card, and with each entry Irving Oil donated $5 to our research. We are extremely pleased that this campaign was so successful- $20,000 (that's 4,000 clicks!) was raised!!!

On August 15, a team including Moe, Philip, Kelsey, Marianna and Kari left Campobello Island for an offshore trip aboard the Shelagh, captained by Joe. Destined for Roseway Basin and slated to last two weeks, the Shelagh was packed to the brim with food, supplies and equipment. After a few days of loading and orienting ourselves to the boat, we left around noon on Friday and began surveying after leaving the harbor. Our sightings in the Grand Manan Channel were few and far between, but there was plenty of fishing gear to be counted. After we ate our first dinner at sea, we continued transiting overnight so that we would reach Roseway Basin by the morning.