During the month of August, the fog finally cleared after almost 40 days! Though the low visibility makes it more difficult, it is not impossible to located the whales. Instead of using our eyes to sppot them, we use our ears and sometimes even our noses!

Fortunately now with the clear weather we have dusted off our binoculars and have had some great trips in the last two months! (My apologies for the long delay in the update!) 

The past two months have been very busy with sightings of humpbacks, fin whales, minke whales, and the occasional sightings of the highly endangered right whales.

Individual humpbacks that have been sighted have been Lace, Shuttle, Baton, Cirrus, P.D., Coronach, Foggy and calf, Sigma, Horizon, Gondolier, Patchwork, Flame, Orion, Raccoon, Filigree, Valley, Dapple and calf, Tusk, Lacuna, Bungee, Meteor and many others. At the end of the season a list of all the humpbacks sighted will be posted.

Most of our trips have been 15 miles to the Northwest with a number of humpbacks and fin whales being seen in that area. During the last week we have been travelling about 14 miles northeast where Arch and Doublet are usually seen. A number of smaller humpbacks have been seen there including Prongs and Egreque. On one particular day we sighted 6 species of cetaceans; humpbacks, fin whales, minke whales, right whales, harbor porpoises and white beaked dolphins. 

On September 3, 2003 owner Harold Graham sailed about 15 miles southwest of Brier island to an area called the rip. He found a number of humpback whales there including an individual that was entangled in gill net. Harold called the coast guard who are responsible for disentanglements on the Nova Scotia side of the Bay of Fundy. With the gear on board the team departed Westport and arrived on the scene about 30 minutes later.

The whale was docile and was very comfortable with the Cetacean Quest beside it. In fact, when Harold manouvered the boat away from the whale, it would look up at him and trumpet as if calling him back. The team stepped aboard the Quest and was able to completely free the whale.

The fishing gear that was on the whale was hauled aboard and taken back to the island. It consisted of 200 fathoms of rope, 100 fathoms of gill net, an anchor, a high flyer and a buoy. Thanks to Harold this whale survived. If he had not found it, it surely would have succumbed to the incoming tide as it was anchored to the bottom.

Since our last update, we have continued to our list of identified humpback whales. These whales can be individually identified by a black and white pattern on the underside of their tail. On June 15 we were pleased to see Foggy with a calf ! Her first calf was born in 2000. Foggy is a special whale to us here as she herself was brought as a calf to the Bay of Fundy by her mother Bermuda. We have seen here every year since her birth in 1987 and have watched her grow into an adult.

Tigris continued to entertain us on several occasions by coming close to the boat to people watch!

On June 21 we conducted a research trip. Our goal was to spend the day in search of cetaceans on both sides of the Bay of Fundy. Some of the humpbacks had left our side so we were on a mission to relocated them! The first location was an area called FInigans, about 15 miles north west of Brier Island.

Herring seining is closed in that part of the Bay so there is an abundance of food for the whales there. Not only were humpbacks present but also a number of minke whales were sighted as well. Some of the individuals sighted there were Solo, Arch, Chablis, Mr. Burns, Vee, Taper, Flash and Tigris. Tigris, as you recall, was seen on our side of the Bay just a few days prior to that.

We continued southwest to Northeast Bank where we sighted fin whales. Fin whales are the second largest whale in the world. We then started back to our side of the Bay to a ledge area called the rip and sighted more humpback whales. thrip overall was very successful with a total of 21 humpbacks, 13 fin whales and 15 minke whales.

Since the discovery of whales on Finigan's, we have been taking our regular whale watching cruises there. The most memorable was on june 24 when we took our sunset cruise there. It was a bit on the foggy side so we had to stop and listen to locate the whales.

We heard several blows northeast of us and headed in that direction. We founf 3 humpbacks whales flipperslapping. one was Patchwork who the approached the boat and entertained us by rolling and flipperslapping next to us. At one point he almost got the passengers wet, which didn't dampen their spirits any! After about a half an hour Patchwork lifted his tail and waved it to us in a farewell and then was gone. We returned home that night eager to get back and experience another encounter with these inhabitant of the deep.

The season has been exceptional up to date with the sightings of humpback whales. This is incredibly early for the Bay of Fundy as humpback whales usually do not make their appearance until the end of June. Some of the identified individuals we have seen are Tigris, Patchwork, Raindrop and calf, Sockeye (Who we haven't seen since 1987!), Horizon, Luna, 8171, 0498 and Egreque. With the presence of prey species, such as krill, I'm sure these whales will stick around.

We have also been seeing fin whales, minke whales, harbor porpoise and Atlantic white beaked dolphins.

The birds are starting to arrive as well. We saw our first Greater Shearwater yesterday and there have also been Sooty Shearwaters, Wilson's Storm Petrels, Phalaropes, Northern gannets and atlantic Puffins.

It seems that what started out to be weekly updates has now turned to monthly updates and for this, I apologize. The last 4 weeks have been busy with frequent sightings of humpbacks, finbacks, minke whales and right whales.

With the movement of the food supply, the rorqual whales have moved 15 to 18 miles offshore to an area called The Prong. (If you saw this on the chart you would understand its name) Our sightings have been mostly of humpback whales and a few fin whales and minke whales. We tend to concentrate on the humpback as they are the basis of our studies.

Some of the whales that we have sighted are: Tusk, Willow, Three Dots, Tigris, Notchy, Mr. Burns, Quixote, Mocha, Chablis, Keyhole, New Moon, Luna, Shockwave and calf, and Horizon.

On July 10, we witnessed the dangers that whales encounter and what possibly could mean the end of one whale's life. We spotted a mother and calf humpback not too far from Brier Island and upon closer inspection discovered that the calf was entangled. The rope seemed to be wrapped around its tail stock which means as this little whale grows, the rope will cut into it which leads to infection.

We called the whale emergency network but as it was late in the day, chances were they would not be able to relocate the pair, but they were on stand-by for the next day. The pair were sighted the next day by another whale watch company and they alerted the network but once again they were unable to travel to our side of the bay.

The calf was assesssed as in no immediate danger and the network chose to monitor the situation in the future. Hopefully this pair will be resighted within the next few days while our colleagues are here from the Center for Coastal Studies, who specialize in such work, so that this little calf has a chance.

On July 16 we spotted our first North Atlantic Right Whale for the season and it was a cow and calf. these calves are born during the winter months off the coast of Florida and Georgia and migrate to more northern waters where their food is more abundant. The mother at the time was bust skim feeding while the calf followed along.

On july 17 we conducted a research cruise to the Prong so that we could get a good idea as to how many whales were located. there. it was very hard to do so as we were surrounded by thick fog which has been the case for the last 2 weeks! We could hear whales all around when we shut down the engine. The humpbacks that were identified that day were Blanco, Baton, Cloud, Tusk, Notchy, Lace, Vibes, Clamp, Quixote, Mr. Burns, and Taper.

Since our last update, we have continued to our list of identified humpback whales. These whales can be individually identified by a black and white pattern on the underside of their tail. On June 15 we were pleased to see Foggy with a calf ! Her first calf was born in 2000. Foggy is a special whale to us here as she herself was brought as a calf to the Bay of Fundy by her mother Bermuda. We have seen here every year since her birth in 1987 and have watched her grow into an adult.

Tigris continued to entertain us on several occasions by coming close to the boat to people watch!

On June 21 we conducted a research trip. Our goal was to spend the day in search of cetaceans on both sides of the Bay of Fundy. Some of the humpbacks had left our side so we were on a mission to relocated them! The first location was an area called FInigans, about 15 miles north west of Brier Island. Herring seining is closed in that part of the Bay so there is an abundance of food for the whales there.

Not only were humpbacks present but also a number of minke whales were sighted as well. Some of the individuals sighted there were Solo, Arch, Chablis, Mr. Burns, Vee, Taper, Flash and Tigris. Tigris, as you recall, was seen on our side of the Bay just a few days prior to that.

We continued southwest to Northeast Bank where we sighted fin whales. Fin whales are the second largest whale in the world. We then started back to our side of the Bay to a ledge area called the rip and sighted more humpback whales. thrip overall was very successful with a total of 21 humpbacks, 13 fin whales and 15 minke whales.

Since the discovery of whales on Finigan's, we have been taking our regular whale watching cruises there. The most memorable was on june 24 when we took our sunset cruise there. It was a bit on the foggy side so we had to stop and listen to locate the whales. We heard several blows northeast of us and headed in that direction. We founf 3 humpbacks whales flipperslapping.

One was Patchwork who the approached the boat and entertained us by rolling and flipperslapping next to us. At one point he almost got the passengers wet, which didn't dampen their spirits any! After about a half an hour Patchwork lifted his tail and waved it to us in a farewell and then was gone. We returned home that night eager to get back and experience another encounter with these inhabitant of the deep.

The season has been exceptional up to date with the sightings of humpback whales. This is incredibly early for the Bay of Fundy as humpback whales usually do not make their appearance until the end of June. Some of the identified individuals we have seen are Tigris, Patchwork, Raindrop and calf, Sockeye (Who we haven't seen since 1987!), Horizon, Luna, 8171, 0498 and Egreque. With the presence of prey species, such as krill, I'm sure these whales will stick around.

We have also been seeing fin whales, minke whales, harbor porpoise and Atlantic white beaked dolphins.

The birds are starting to arrive as well. We saw our first Greater Shearwater yesterday and there have also been Sooty Shearwaters, Wilson's Storm Petrels, Phalaropes, Northern gannets and atlantic Puffins.

The The 2002 season was very successful with a record number of individual humpbacks being sighted in the Bay of Fundy. We documented 110 throughout the summer. The research didvision of Brier Island Whale and Seabird Cruises also sighted and recorded 12 new calves to the Gulf of Maine humpback population (our usual number is 4 or 5!)

Our 2002 season has ended and we are looking forward to our 2003 season which will commence in late May. We are looking forward to seeing you then. Be sure to call or write for our informative brochure.

The entire month of August to date has been excellent for whale watching. We have been seeing up to 10 humpbacks on each trip. Other species that we have seen have been finbacks, including a mother and calf, minke whales, right whales, Atlantic White Sided Dolphins, and Harbor Porpoises. To date we have identified 59 individual humpback whales, 10 of which were calves. The moms were Cirrus, Rhino, Veteran, Shuttle, Flash, #0526, Solo, Siphon and 2 unknowns. The calves are born in the Caribbean during the winter. Each humpback whale can be identified by a pattern on the underside of the tail which is unique to each individual and is named. This helps us to determine migration patterns as well as population sizes. Other humpbacks we have sighted are Luna, Gremlin, Istar, Patchwork, Foggy, New Moon, Taper, Churn, and Mocha as well as many others!.

We have also been seeing many birds including the Atlantic Puffin, Greater and Sooty Shearwaters, Red and Red Necked Phalaropes, Wilson's Storm Petrels and Northern Gannets. Occasional visiting birds have been Razorbills, Common Murres, Common and Arctic Terns and a Pomarine Jaegar!

Sightings have been great for the past two weeks!For the most part we have been going 15 miles off shore to an area called Finigan's an area that we frequented two years ago. Sightings were of humpbacks, finbacks and the occasional minke whale. One observation that we have been making this season was that we haven't been sighting as many minke whales as in the past. Some of the individual humpback we have been seeing at Finigan's are Filigree, Notchy, New Moon, Coronach, Champagne, Baton, Cone Lagoon, Patchwork, and Cirrus and her calf.

One of the best trips since we started whale watching was on July 26 when we went to an area called the McDormand Patch. It was there that we encountered A LOT of whales, including humpbacks and finback. All of the whales were engaged in surface feeding on krill which could easily be seen at the surface. We returned to this area for each cruise but the best was at sunset when it seemed like every greater shearwater and whale in the Bay of Fundy was at that area! We documented four more mothers with their calves. They were Rhino, Veteran, 0526 (no name) and an unknown That evening we estimated there to be over a hundred whales! No Lie!

The research division of Brier Island Whale and Seabird Cruises conducrted a survey on July 31 and we documented a blue whale in the Bay. This species is very rarely seen here and are more common in northern waters. These whales are the largest mammal to have ever lived and reach lengths of 100ft. We also sighted that day 21 humpbacks, 30 fin whales, 1 minke whale, Atlantic White Sided Dolphins and Harbor Porpoises.