Whale Tales

 If my last post didn't convince you to take a trip to see some puffins maybe this link will. 

Puffin Cam

WARNING!! don't click on this link if you don't have good self control or don't have a hour or two to waste. This link is to a camera on Eastern Egg Island showing ledge where puffins hang out. There are a few other cameras that have different views of the island. Puffins are cute and silly and you can usually see a few of them most hours during the day. It's just one of those things you can't stop watching once you start so click on the link if you dare.

After Boothbay my wife and I headed south and spent a couple of day at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire. On our way there we decided to try a whale watch out of Rye, NH. We went out on a boat from the Granite State Whale Watch company for a 4 hour tour. It was basically an hour out to the feeding grounds a couple hours looking for whales and an hour back to the harbor. The weather was a little warmer than when we did the puffin cruise and it was clear weather and calm seas. It was a good day to be out on the water. 

As soon as we got to the feeding grounds they spotted a humpback whale. 

We spent about 30 mins watching the humpback swim and dive. You don't really see much above the water but it is cool to watch them swim. They are massive around 60-70 feet long and you can kinda feel the weight of them as they pass by the boat. We have been on 5 or so whale watches off the north east coast and up in Alaska. We actually saw them doing some bubble feeding in Alaska but didn't see anything like that here. However we did see the humpback slap it's tail against the water to corral and stun some fish.

That was a new one for us. After leaving the humpback we found a minke whale which is smaller (20-30) feet long. 

Again you only see a small part of the way but it was just fun to see them in the wild. The people providing the narration and information about the whales were from the Blue Ocean Society and work on tracking the whales to understand them better and track the population and health. For a small donation they actually gave us all the picture they took on the cruise(which you can see here) Some of these photos are used to identify the whales and see if there is anything wrong with them. For example the whale up top this post is call Sedge(whales are identified by the marking on their tail) We saw a couple more minke whales before heading back to the dock and on to our hotel. 

Hampton Beach is an interesting beach town. It is sort of like Seaside Heights but instead of the food and arcades being on the boardwalk they are on the street across from the beach. They had some good crap food on the street. We went for some donuts and instead of giving us something from the case they actually filled and iced the donut to our liking so we basically got a custom made donut. AND it was as good as it sounds. Besides eating way too much sweets we watched some people build some sand sculptures for a competition in a few days. Unfortunately we couldn't stay around to see the finished sculptures.

Part of the idea of going to Hampton Beach was to see some place new and get a little time relaxing on the beach. We did get a couple of hours on the beach but an afternoon shower cut our time short. Hampton Beach was a decent place to hang out for a couple of days and get 2 hours closer to home. It would make a good stopping place on our way up to or back from Maine or Nova Scotia. 

Our original plans were to come straight home from Hampton Beach but we were close to Cape Cod and had been a little disappointed by the claim chowder we got in Maine so we decided to spend a night in Cape Cod as it was only about an hour or so out of our way. 

It was a quick stop over but we got to some of our favorite shops and sights as well as a couple of bowls of our favorite chowder. Although it was a quick trip we saw a lot of cool things. It was just good to get away for a week and have some fun.