Sunday, July 9th: Today was by far the best whale watching trip of the summer so far! In college I am majoring in Marine Biology and already have lots of prior knowledge regarding humpback whales but since I began interning on the boat I have learned so much more information. My favorite thing that I am able to experience is all the incredible unique behaviors that the humpback whales exhibit day to day. Today was one of those days that left me speechless. After finding our whale off of Long Branch on our trip today we noticed it was chin slapping, which is a common humpback behavior where they pop their heads and upper bodies out of the water then slap their chins down into the water. They do this to try and remove some of the barnacles on their chins. The whale we saw today was continuously chin slapping about every 10 seconds for almost 15 minutes straight! He even circled around the entire boat for everyone to get a good look. I have never heard of or experienced a humpback chin slapping so many times in a row. It was a spectacular sight! He then began flipper slapping which is also a very interesting behavior to see! Today was definitely one of my favorite days out whale watching and I look forward to the rest of the summer!
Another great weekend of whale watching
