1986 First Meeting with Fissure 8/31/86
Both the captain and I were new to whale watching and we fumbled at first. He had worked on fishing boats, I had taught school and been an observer on research vessels but had no experience as naturalist on a boat. It was soon clear that the captain's great boat handling skills, friendships with the local fishermen, and affinity with the whales made him a natural. He seemed to know where they would come up next and how to approach without disturbing them. My teaching skills came in handy, but most of all I was totally intrigued by the nature of whales and couldn't wait to go out for the next adventure. There was so much to see and learn. We were a great team!
By the end of that first summer we had a lot of experience under our belt. We had seen many different marine animals: ocean sunfish, basking sharks, tuna, dolphins,seals, finbacks, minkes, right whales and humpbacks. We had seen all kinds of exciting behaviors... tail lobbing, breaching, flipper slapping. And we had begun to identify several individual humpbacks by taking pictures of the bottom of their fluke (tail) and sending them in to be matched at Allied Whale (they house the catalogue of North Atlantic Humpbacks). We felt we had seen just about everything...
It was a flat calm, sunny late August day and we headed out to the North end of Jeffrey's Ledge on the advise of a fisherman who was out there already. We came upon two humpbacks blowing a few hundred yards apart. One turned out to be Notch, a mature whale with a ragged tail that had been seen by various whale watch boats for the last 6 summers. We shut down to drift with Notch for a while, losing track of the second one.
Suddenly ...WHOOOOSH... right beside us, so close that I couldn't focus, the fluke of the second whale. The thunderous sound of 100 people running to that side of the boat must have been very satisfying to this young rambunctious whale.
He dove but we could still see the white of his flippers glowing way beneath the surface. Then we saw him reposition underwater so he was "standing" upright. He rose slowly back to the surface and "spyhopped" obviously looking us over.
A whales eyes are placed on each side of their broad head and they can only see binocularly by looking down. The best way for Fissure to get a good look at us was to spyhop (like he is doing in the picture above). We were looking as intently at him as he was at us. It was a very quiet, magical moment.
If you click on the picture above it will take you to a link on flickr where you can see a larger labelled version of this shot. You are looking at his bottom jaw, with barnacles strewn in amongst the rorquals or pleats on his throat. These pleats expand to hold the water while the whale sieves the mouthful of plankton out through its baleen. The green shapes under the water are his huge (15') white flippers.
He dropped back down to a horizontal position and glided along the full length of the boat, insuring we all got a good look. He was so close we could hear the water gliding off his back with a whisssh. When he exhaled it was explosive; when he inhaled it sounded like someone whistling in a big hollow tube... wonderful sounds, hard to represent accurately with words but I can still hear them in my head.
In this picture his blowhole (right above the person with red hair) was clamped firmly shut; he had just inhaled. You can see the fleshy ridge that forms a V around his nostrils and works as a splash guard. Whales nostrils (and those of most marine mammals) are closed when relaxed and must be pulled open to breathe.
That summer, we called him "Barney" because he carried a "pet" barnacle, the white dot on his back, and we could identify him as soon as we saw it. (His fluke was the true identifier, since barnacles are likely to fall off when Humpbacks migrate to warmer waters).
In the Gulf of Maine, the ocean is opaque with life... phytoplankton and zoo plankton exist in such quantity that you can rarely see more than 50 or 60 feet underwater. It helped that it was flat calm so we could see much more of Fissure than if it were choppy... a perfect day for such an encounter. He lay parallel to us for a bit (perhaps scoping us out with one eye), then slowly turned to face us. We were amazed to see him move such a huge body with just gentle gesture of tail and flipper! He was just a younster, a "mere" 35-40 feet long, when full grown he would be 50+ feet! He lay there, white 15' flippers spread like wings, balancing and keeping himself in place. We just looked at each other in silence for several minutes.
In this picture his blow hole is slightly open as he takes a occasional breath. Baleen whales have two blow holes, while toothed whales (dolphins and orca) have just one.
He let his tail sink languidly until he was back in a spy-hopping position. We could see the rorquals (pleats) of his lower jaw, festooned with barnacles. That is the captains hand as he climbed to get a better view.
Next Fissure spread out his flippers again skulling a little then lying there like a bird soaring. The flipper glowed a beautiful greenish white beneath the surface.
Humpback whales are called Megaptera novaeangliae in latin which means big winged New Englander. With his wings spread he looked huge and we had to keep reminding ourselves that, being only two years old, he was still a "small" whale.
It had been a 3 hour encounter and we were already late to get home on time. No one wanted to leave including Fissure. But, when he turned away, the captain felt it was safe to put the engine in gear and back slowly away. It was a very animated group on the two hour trip home, comparing remembrances and excitement.
By the end of that first summer we had a lot of experience under our belt. We had seen many different marine animals: ocean sunfish, basking sharks, tuna, dolphins,seals, finbacks, minkes, right whales and humpbacks. We had seen all kinds of exciting behaviors... tail lobbing, breaching, flipper slapping. And we had begun to identify several individual humpbacks by taking pictures of the bottom of their fluke (tail) and sending them in to be matched at Allied Whale (they house the catalogue of North Atlantic Humpbacks). We felt we had seen just about everything...
It was a flat calm, sunny late August day and we headed out to the North end of Jeffrey's Ledge on the advise of a fisherman who was out there already. We came upon two humpbacks blowing a few hundred yards apart. One turned out to be Notch, a mature whale with a ragged tail that had been seen by various whale watch boats for the last 6 summers. We shut down to drift with Notch for a while, losing track of the second one.
Suddenly ...WHOOOOSH... right beside us, so close that I couldn't focus, the fluke of the second whale. The thunderous sound of 100 people running to that side of the boat must have been very satisfying to this young rambunctious whale.
He dove but we could still see the white of his flippers glowing way beneath the surface. Then we saw him reposition underwater so he was "standing" upright. He rose slowly back to the surface and "spyhopped" obviously looking us over.
A whales eyes are placed on each side of their broad head and they can only see binocularly by looking down. The best way for Fissure to get a good look at us was to spyhop (like he is doing in the picture above). We were looking as intently at him as he was at us. It was a very quiet, magical moment.
If you click on the picture above it will take you to a link on flickr where you can see a larger labelled version of this shot. You are looking at his bottom jaw, with barnacles strewn in amongst the rorquals or pleats on his throat. These pleats expand to hold the water while the whale sieves the mouthful of plankton out through its baleen. The green shapes under the water are his huge (15') white flippers.
He dropped back down to a horizontal position and glided along the full length of the boat, insuring we all got a good look. He was so close we could hear the water gliding off his back with a whisssh. When he exhaled it was explosive; when he inhaled it sounded like someone whistling in a big hollow tube... wonderful sounds, hard to represent accurately with words but I can still hear them in my head.
In this picture his blowhole (right above the person with red hair) was clamped firmly shut; he had just inhaled. You can see the fleshy ridge that forms a V around his nostrils and works as a splash guard. Whales nostrils (and those of most marine mammals) are closed when relaxed and must be pulled open to breathe.
That summer, we called him "Barney" because he carried a "pet" barnacle, the white dot on his back, and we could identify him as soon as we saw it. (His fluke was the true identifier, since barnacles are likely to fall off when Humpbacks migrate to warmer waters).
In the Gulf of Maine, the ocean is opaque with life... phytoplankton and zoo plankton exist in such quantity that you can rarely see more than 50 or 60 feet underwater. It helped that it was flat calm so we could see much more of Fissure than if it were choppy... a perfect day for such an encounter. He lay parallel to us for a bit (perhaps scoping us out with one eye), then slowly turned to face us. We were amazed to see him move such a huge body with just gentle gesture of tail and flipper! He was just a younster, a "mere" 35-40 feet long, when full grown he would be 50+ feet! He lay there, white 15' flippers spread like wings, balancing and keeping himself in place. We just looked at each other in silence for several minutes.
In this picture his blow hole is slightly open as he takes a occasional breath. Baleen whales have two blow holes, while toothed whales (dolphins and orca) have just one.
He let his tail sink languidly until he was back in a spy-hopping position. We could see the rorquals (pleats) of his lower jaw, festooned with barnacles. That is the captains hand as he climbed to get a better view.
Next Fissure spread out his flippers again skulling a little then lying there like a bird soaring. The flipper glowed a beautiful greenish white beneath the surface.
Humpback whales are called Megaptera novaeangliae in latin which means big winged New Englander. With his wings spread he looked huge and we had to keep reminding ourselves that, being only two years old, he was still a "small" whale.
It had been a 3 hour encounter and we were already late to get home on time. No one wanted to leave including Fissure. But, when he turned away, the captain felt it was safe to put the engine in gear and back slowly away. It was a very animated group on the two hour trip home, comparing remembrances and excitement.
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