Cruise to the Stellwagon Bank today

M

matt_unique

New member
The Admiral and I spent the night on the boat then cruised out to Stellwagon Bank (off the coast of MA) today to look for Humpback whales.

We were 15.5 nm from land at the closest point, Gloucester. We had flat calm seas all the way out and back. We spotted the first whale about 12 nm out. There were several other whale watch and private boats in the area. It is amazing to be reminded of how huge these things are. I was able to take a few good pictures and posted them in a new sub-album titled "Stellwagon Bank August 2008".

One whale stayed on the surface somewhat close to us and slapped the water with a fin. A while later we had 5 whales surface extremely close to the boat. You can see from one of my pictures how close it was. When they exhale the spout rises about 15' in the air. We heard one of them sing while surfacing. At one point a whale came straight out head first then slipped back in. Very impressive to see these large mammals today.
 
Great photos. I really like seeing the whales here in the sound. going 15 miles off shore sound funny but not some thing you can do every day. I have seen greys, humps, orcas, spotted dolphin, minkies and pilots whales ( I think) all from my c-dory.
 
mbwf":2dv549wy said:
That is SO COOL! Where you a little worried when the one whale surfaced so close? Thanks for sharing!
Click to expand...

We were not worried when the whale came close as shown in the photo, they are pretty smart. When we were leaving the area a whale surfaced RIGHT in front of us though. The Admiral was on the deck to serve as lookout and gave a yell. I dropped the throttles to neutral and the whale made a quick dive. Of course you need to be careful when in this area and go slow. If I were running fast it would have been very close if not an impact which would have been horrible.

It was a fun day adventure. If you were looking at a map, we were almost halfway between Gloucester and Provincetown (tip of Cape Cod).
 
Great photos. What an adventure. We once took a commercial whale watch boat out of Gloucester to the same area and saw whales up close. One of them breached right beside our boat. It was an amazing experience to realize we were visitors in someone else's neighborhood.

Years ago off Harpswell a whale surfaced under a pretty good sized power boat, and totaled it. Fortunately not a mistake whales make very often!
 
In the summer of 1974, I staffed at the Camp Cherry Valley boy scout camp on Catalina Island. On a day off, another staffer and I were canoeing along the coast of Catalina between the Isthmus and the Grotto. It was midmorning. The wind was calm and the seas had only a gentle swell. We were about 100 yards offshore.

Suddenly the aluminum canoe lurched violently to starboard. There was a rasping noise. It was a whale. He was using our canoe as an itching post for the right side of his back. He submerged, then came back and did the same thing for the left side of his back.

Having scratched where it itched, he then proceeded on his merry way. So did we.
 
Well we made another nice long cruise yesterday. We returned to Stellwagon with some friends who have never seen whales. There were not as many around yesterday but we still had an unbelievable encounter. Two whales were just floating along slowly on the surface. I carefully approached and they did not seem to mind. They were perhaps 10' away from the boat at the closest point. We spent a solid 20 minutes just floating beside these two huge whales with the engines off. Eventually they grew tired of us and descended. It was just unreal to see their huge bodies as they arched and descended into the depths with their huge flukes I mean right beside us. Our friends were of course amazed having never seen whales other than on tv.

We then cruised to Boston for dinner and a night cruise back to Salem. The water was so calm the Admiral took a little cat-nap for the cruise north. We had a full moon but it was surprisingly dark. Modern electronics are a great thing, I was able to thread the needle into a narrow channel.

We cruised a total of 70nm yesterday - great day!
 
The regulations for cruising near whales in MA are listed here:

http://stellwagen.noaa.gov/visit/whalew ... lines.html

There are several regulations, unfortunately few of these are practiced out there by the fisherman trolling for tuna, but the most relevant is as follows:

>>No Intentional Approach (100 feet away or closer)

* Do not approach within 100 feet of whales. If whales approach within 100 feet of your vessel, put engines in neutral and do not rengage propulsion until whales are observed clear of harm's way from your vessel.
<<

We could see them from quite a distance. I approached from behind and brought us parallel to them at my best guess at about 100' and shut the engines off. We in fact did drift toward them over the course of 20 minutes (I was East of them but the winds were out of the East) but it was not intentional. As I mentioned we were at perhaps 10' at the closest point before they descended. I did not restart the engines until I saw them make a deep descent. We have never seen whales just hang out on the surface like that. They usually descend when boats approach them from quite a distance. Sometimes they will surface close by and immediately descend. Leaving the Stellwagon the Admiral always sits watch and yells out when she sees one in front.

I do need to be careful about getting too close, intentional or otherwise.
 
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