Cape Cod - Index

Cape Cod - travel_guide_2008 - Index

A Hyannis Whale Watcher cruise departs from Barnstable Harbor. Excursions are offered daily in season. TOM CROKE
A WHALE OF A TIME
Cruises to Stellwagen Bank, feeding ground of
humpback and other whales, offer exciting glimpses of
these ocean giants.
BY TIMOTHY J. WOOD
The water changes color, brightening to bluish-green,
almost turquoise. The bubbles come next, frothing to
the surface in a circular pattern. And then the colossal head
appears, mouth open wide, gray-white baleen extending from
the upper jaw, filtering sand eels and small fish from the
seawater.
Another humpback whale surfaces nearby, and another,
and soon the Provincetown whale-watch boat Captain Red is
keel-deep in whales. From the top deck of the 100-foot vessel,
Joanne Jarzobski, director of marine education for the
Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, calls out the names of
whales as they come into view.
“There’s Entropy, and at two o’clock is Sickle and her calf,”
she says, quickly identifying each whale by the black and white
pigmentation pattern on the underside of the flukes, as unique
as human fingerprints. Soon there are a dozen humpbacks
■ activities cape & islands
feeding within sight of the vessel, much to the astonishment of
the approximately 200 passengers.
A mature female named Filament stirs up a cloud of
bubbles within a few dozen feet of the boat. The massive
head of the 50-foot-long, 45-ton creature breaks the surface
as she exhales a mist of steam. Her unnamed calf, about six
months old but already 18 to 20 feet long and weighing
several tons, surfaces next to her. Although the calf is not
feeding, it mimics its mother’s behavior in preparation for
the time when it will wean and begin eating up to two tons
of food a day.
“This is an incredible display of feeding,” Jarzobski says.
“This is why the whales come here, to eat and to nurse their
calves.”
Whale watching on the East Coast began in Provincetown
in 1975. Legend has it that charter fishing boat captain Al
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