Whale Watching

Thar she blows!

Every year we try to go whale watching out of Provincetown with the family on or around Labor Day Weekend. It started as a birthday tradition and is one we all enjoy. This year's trip with the Dolphin Fleet was spectacular. We saw some great whales very close up, in several cases groups of three traveling together.

These were all humpback whales and the naturalist on board told us many of them were ones not seen by them before. This means they may have been whales that usually summer farther north which have begun to head farther south following a food supply. There were definitely lots of small fish in the water. We saw hundreds of birds feeding off the water's surface and could see fish jumping from below as well.

This one was going down for a dive.....flipping its tail up as it dives down.

This whale was not as close to the boat as it looks and you should know the boat was not moving forward so it was never in danger.....It was one fo three whales that passed in front of and underneath the front part of the boat. As I said, spectacular! I never get tired of seeing whales....

Watching Whales from Provincetown Beaches

It was a beautiful day on the Cape today and I decided to grab my camera and sketchbook and drive to Provincetown to see if I could see any whales from the shore. Reports of whale sightings from the beaches of Provincetown are fairly common at this time of year and I figured if nothing else it would be a great day to watch the gannets diving while I ate my lunch.

The view above is from Race Point where I didn't see any whales. There were many people playing ball on the beach and vehicles parked along the waterfront so I drove over to Herring Cove.

It's hard to see in this picture because my camera's zoom isn't working but that dark spot is a whale watching boat. Around the boat you could see all the spouts of the whales it was watching and sometimes there were three or four spouts going at the same time. As I scanned the horizon with my binoculars there were more whales and at one point one of them breached. It was pretty amazing and people were lined up along the beach hooting and hollering to each other to check it out.

The weather may not be as nice tomorrow but if you're on the Cape and you have a chance over the next few days to get to Provincetown you might check out the whale show!