Dolphin Day

The coastal towns of Massachusetts were at the heart of the 19th century American whaling industry and, because America was the biggest participant in the trade, most of the wealth gained from whaling accrued there. The great Quaker whaling families (Folger, Macy, Starbuck etc.) were based in Nantucket, but Boston was the financial capital where they invested their money and also where colleges and churches were founded on whale oil.

In the early days of small, locally-built wooden boats you could see right whales from the beach but soon the local grounds were exhausted and the New England whalers had to travel ever further afield; north to Greenland and even round the Horn and then up the rim of the Pacific Ocean to the Galapagos, Hawaii and Alaska.

Today the George's Bank and the ledges off the New England coast are the new whaling grounds for tourists. Whale-watch tours operate from Boston in Massachusetts and from Kennebunkport and Ipswich in New Hampshire. Eastwards, in the Gulf of Maine, boats go out from Portland, Boothbay Harbour and Bar Harbour and then, at Eastport, the deep water of the Bay of Fundy comes in close enough to watch from shore.

The local newspapers have been running a story that right whales may be breeding in the Gulf of Maine as well as the Bay of Fundy. One report says that 20 calves were produced last winter. The gestation period is 12 months so mating and breeding takes place at the same place in mid-winter. These animals are extremely rare now with only a few hundred left, meaning that they have gone through a "genetic bottleneck" that left them with a very small gene pool, so any breeding at all is exciting news. I would dearly love to catch a glimpse of one.

Seasons vary, but my own observation is that whales in general are harder to find in the high tourist season (before Labour Day) than they were 20 years ago. There could be many factors involved but high water temperatures must be one of them.

During our visit in August last year, all of the Bay of Fundy boats spent a couple of weeks chasing the same two minke whales while the Gulf of Maine had no whales at all. This week there is a humpback mother and calf off New Hampshire and a few minkes, and that's not a lot of whales. But we decided to part with our money and go out from Portland anyway.


The Odyssey Whale Watch Tour Co. operates a smart little boat from the tourist quay in Portland Maine. It can comfortably carry about 50 passengers out to the deep water at speed, so that trips last about four hours. They do not have the success rate of some of the other operators but offer a refund or a free trip if they let you down. It was a lovely day to be out so we were not too worried, but the signs looked good.

The sea was flat and visibility was excellent. We saw common seals in the harbour and soon passed a flock of small wading birds swimming in the sea. These phalaropes are extraordinary birds that spend most of their time out in the open ocean but breed ashore in the high Arctic. The females are brightly coloured while the males are camouflaged because they are "home-husbands". The hen takes the lead in courtship and lays the eggs but leaves the male to incubate them while she regains condition for a quick get-away. Arctic summers are short so a swift turn-around time can be crucial.

Phalaropes often follow whales so I took them to be a good omen. However, it soon became noticeable that there was not a lot of surface activity going on. We saw few gulls, no auks, skuas or petrels, all of which chase the same food as the whales. We did see a few gannets that were probably chasing mackerel.


Another indicator is the number of fishing boats over the deep water. When the feeding is good, the upwellings attract big commercial fish like tuna and swordfish and there can be a small city of boats out there; we saw three or four, otherwise all the boats were crewed by lobstermen.


A fellow passenger told me that this was his second trip on the boat. He had a free ticket due to seeing no whales on the last trip. "Looks like another no-show to me."  And so, as far as big cetaceans are concerned, it turned out to be.



After three hours, we had taken a big bite out of the bay, making an arc of about a 10 mile radius. It was very pleasant to be out on the water and I could have hung in there for hours more, but were were heading for home.

Suddenly the sound of the engines changed and we veered off to the north where the skipper had spotted some "commotion in the ocean". I could see gannets plunging and huge splashes so it looked like we might at least see some tuna feeding.

What we found was a sizeable school of Atlantic white-sided dolphins who gave us a half an hour of feverish activity. They did not seem to be hunting so much as playing and socialising, which is common with these highly intelligent animals. The school consisted of males with big dorsal fins and smaller females with calves. They rode our bow-wave and then jumped in our wake as we left. They had made our day and saved the Odyssey Whale-watch Company a lot of money.

Red-necked phalaropes.