Tourists who plunk down around $35 to ride a boat for hours offshore on a whale watching tour expect to see some action. This summer’s tour operators promise not to disappoint – visitors are guaranteed sight of at least one whale bubble feeding, breeching (jumping out of the water), flipper slapping or just blowing air. And if that whale fails to appear, most Maine operators guarantee something – either partial refund and/or or a free second trip.
Fortunately, an abundance of whales in coastal Maine waters this summer is making it easier for tours to deliver the goods on that very first try out.
Modern technology helps. For example, on the new, custom-designed $7 million ATLANTICCAT, all 440 passengers aboard the 130-foot boat really never have to leave the climate-controlled cabin. Here, whales are featured nonstop on all six large-screen TV’s. Early in August, “hydro-phones” were being added so tourists can listen to the live singing of the whales. Also, this catamaran will be the first in Maine to soon sport a tethered Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV), a two-foot submarine (painted yellow) designed to capture video pictures of whales swimming around underwater.
Will this ROV annoy the whales? “It should be close enough for visibility,” says Even Salvatore, general manager, “but obviously we’re not going to go right up to them and bump into them.”
The trick to proper whale watching is to not disturb the main attraction – all boats strive to maintain the appropriate distance. “You have to be gracious about your movements,” explains Toby Stephenson, head naturalist aboard the ATLANTIC CAT. “If you have a two-story building chasing you down the street, you’re not going to like it. So when your boat approaches, you want the whales to think they’re just sitting next to a big object.”
The whales do have the right to protection against harassment – each tour operator must comply with the federal regulations of the National Marine Fisheries Service, or risk losing its operating license. But everyone stands to gain by cooperating, explains Dr. Sean Todd, professor of Marine Studies at the College of the Atlantic. “These people want a sustainable business and all are extremely responsible whale handlers,” he explains. “If they do harass the animals, the animals are not going to come back.”
And many familiar whale tails have come back to the coast of Maine this summer, according to Rosie Seton, research associate at the Maine Mammal Research Lab of the College of the Atlantic. Seton maintains 16 binders of 20,000-odd photographs of over 5,500 humpback whales known to shuttle along North Atlantic waters from Maine to the Caribbean. “Each whale has a unique natural marking on its tail, which in a way is like their fingerprint,” she explains.
Knowledge of these distinctive characteristics makes it easier for whale watching naturalists to point out familiar whales to the tourists-it’s like seeing old friends. “So far this summer I’ve already seen Lunch, Raggedy, George Washington, Gemini, Triton, Siphon, Ebony, Crevasse and Nuke,” enthuses ATLANTICCAT’s Stephenson, from Bar Harbor. “Last year I didn’t see this consistent number of humpbacks until very late August, early September.”
Tours out of Boothbay Harbor also reported sightings of an abundance of whales in the August waters. “This morning we saw more than 15 pilot whales, three humpbacks, two finbacks,” counted Mechele Vanderlaan, naturalist for Boothbay Whale Watch, on Aug. 12. “In the afternoon we saw another big bubble feeding of humpbacks – the whales circles around the fish, blowing air in the water to trap them, making a lime-green bubble cloud.”
Like most modern operators, Boothbay Whale Watch uses sonar to help find whales, specifically a Global Positioning System, or GPS. “We start our search where we left them the afternoon before, in the upwelling zones – places where deep nutrient-rich water gets pushed to the surface by underwater mountain ranges and water mixes with sunlight to create algae blooms. The algae attracts plankton. The plankton attracts fish, and that’s what attracts the whales. This has been an incredible summer. Usually we see just herring and mackerel, but this summer we’re seeing krill, which is kind of weird looking, orange-in-color clouds of smaller-than-fingernail shrimp.”
Whale watching tours also point out other wildlife attractions, like open-air birds, harbor seals, Atlantic white-sided dolphins and basking sharks. Most also guarantee tickets to come again, free of charge, if the whales don’t materialize on their first trip.
Dan Libby, owner of Odyssey Whale Watch, operates daily trips out of Portland. “I tell people maybe you’ll see right whales; there are only 250 left in the North Atlantic. Hopefully, you’ll see humpback whales – we’ve experienced quite a number of encounters, but not as many as we would like. Maybe pilot whales. You might even see a sperm whale. But definitely finback and minke whales,” touts Libby.
If not? “I guarantee that I’ll take them out again if they don’t see a whale – sometimes this happens because of injuries, fog or mechanical problems,” says Libby.
To enhance the whale watching experience, coming soon on the new ATLANTICCAT, visitors will also be treated to a DVD presentation currently in production. This variation on a power-point presentation will help explain whatever the whale watching tourist might have just witnessed. After all, it takes a long ride (more than 20 miles out at sea) for a whale sighting, which often happens in a flash, a flip or via bubbles in the water. So it helps please the crowd to also promise high-tech visual aids.