CTY Whales and Estuaries July 25-August 3

Welcome to the first installment of the Lady Maryland's trip 4 adventure blog, or, updates from CTY's second session Whales and Estuaries course, trip number 2. As the course's RA taps out this first update, the old gal is anchored in a refreshingly breezy harbor, and the last traces of daylight are fading from an enchantingly blue-grey sky. The students, having just finished their hot-coco, are finishing up the evening's lesson, which began with Nautical Terms 101, and is ending with I don't know what because I'm updating the blog. As a matter of course, it feels like we've been on this ship for at least a week, and I mean that in the best possible way.

The adventure began on a vessel quite unlike this two-masted "Pungy" schooner. The students and about half of the crew boarded a commercial whale-watching charter boat, and cruised at half the speed of sound out to Stellwagon bank, a popular haunt of the odontocetes ("toothed whales") and mysticetes ("mustachioed whales" i.e. baleen whales) that migrate through this area. As we approached the bank (which, I believe, is just as surprisingly large as every other geographic feature that was formed by glacier movement), we ecountered a large pod of Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins, that gamboled around and under our boat, and even hitched a ride in our wake, taking advantage of the current we created astern ("behind" in nautical terms). We were greeted at the Bank by a female Humpback whale named "Rapier", after the sword-like pattern on her tail flukes, and her calf, born earlier this year. As they surfaced together, the naturalist onboard informed us over the intercom that the calf was feeding. We encountered another mother-calf pair further out, before we set our course back for the port of Gloucester.

I've run out of time before the all-hands "muster". Expect updates tomorrow on our first days at sea and a visit to a port that was once a capital of the whaling industry. Until then, here's a preview:

Keep a weather-eye on the horizon!