Whale Watch Trip Aboard Captain John’s Boat

by George Clondas

What’s an avid fisherman to do? You want to spend time on the water, but you really need to spend some time with the family. Take them on a whale watch! This July I did just that. I packed up the family and we drove to Plymouth, Massachusetts for an adventure, that my daughter is still talking about nearly a month later. I chose to go with Captain John Whale Watch & Fishing Tours, located right on Town Wharf in Plymouth. I’m glad I did, because the crew at Captain John have whale watching down to a science. Fishermen may be familiar with the Captain John name because they also run deep sea fishing trips from the same port. It’s these fishing trips that make their whale watching trips so successful. The fishing trips head out earlier than the whale watching trips and radio back all the locations they see whales, taking out a lot of the guess work for the whale watch captains. The ride out to the whales took about one hour and it flew by, because every trip Captain John does has a marine biologist on board giving a talk about whales and answering any questions you had about whales. Ours was named Krill (not her real name, but given to her by a captain she worked with years ago). She has been doing this for many years and was very knowledgeable. Everyone onboard had a great time, judging by all the Ooooo’s and Ahhhh’s.

The passengers are all boarding. Get there early, the boat fills up fast!
If you don’t have time to eat before you get there, don’t worry there’s a full galley where you can grab a bite to eat.

On every trip there is a marine biologist on board to keep track of the whales seen on each trip. Krill (nickname given to her by a previous captain years ago) was ours. Throughout the trip she would share facts about the whales and would answer any questions people had.

Caught a glimpse of the Mayflower on the way out.
The kids can’t wait to see their first whale.
A pod of dolphins came up and played in the wake off the bow of the boat.
This was our first whale. Krill explained that each whale can be identified by the markings on the underside of their fluke.
This whale got very close to the boat.
Going Deep! After a few times surfacing, the whales would take a deep dive, staying down for about four minutes. From up on the top deck you could still guess where they were heading by the bubbles the whales blow out.
Thar she blows!!!
If you look at the scars on this whale’s back, you can see where it was hit by the propeller of a boat a few years ago. By law, boaters are required to slow down in the vicinity of whales and avoid strikes, or they can be fined thousands of dollars.
Here’s a better view of the prop scars on the humpback whale.
This shot of bug light told us we were almost home.