Today the cadets disembarked Lady Maryland to board a whale watching ship that would set out from Gloucester harbor. After such an unexpected surprise yesterday, many thought it would be hard to top off such a great day of whale watching onboard Lady Maryland.
They were all pleasantly surprised (yet again). After almost a two hour journey, the whale watching ship reached the southern tip of Stellwagen Bank to come upon dozens and dozens of Humpback whales. They were literally everywhere! And what made it so special was that they were bubble feeding: where one individual circles around to form a bubble net to trap the fish while the others swim up to the surface at the same time top gulp all that prey. It was absolutely spectacular. Such bubble feeding groups were all over the area – it was hard enough to see them all!
Even the whale watch naturalist onboard said she had never seen sop mane Humpbacks in one place at the same time feeding – we all knew we were really lucky, you don’t see this everyday. One whale even breached as it jumped up spectacularly right next to another whale watching ship – its entire massive body minus the fluke perpendicularly above the water- and then came crashing down in an enormous splash!
After returning back to Gloucester just after 2:00PM, the cadets had lunch and then set sail to do some sailing outside of Gloucester harbor. The plan was to head up around Cape Ann towards Rockport to make up some time to the Isles of Shoals, our ultimate destination. But just after getting out of the harbor, the winds completely died out and we were not moving at all. Furthermore, the forecast called for some significant winds from the east so the captain decided it would be best to motor back into Gloucester harbor and spend the night anchored behind the breakwater wall, protected from the wind.
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