Stellwagen Bank trip report
This trip was originally scheduled for May 19, 2018 but forecasts of high winds, high seas and rain caused postponement until June 3rd. On that new June 3rd date we had no rain but the winds kicked up and the seas became rough, forcing us to abort the trip after just three hours. The Captain kindly provided rain-checks for future trips on his whale-watching boat this year for all of the 70 birders and whale watchers on board.
We left the dock at 7am, with 2-3 foot seas, and a remarkably beautiful clear breezy day, around 60°F. Within several hours, however, growing winds caused 6-8 foot seas and too much bouncing around for good bird watching, so we elected to abort the trip and return to dock. We did see three humpback whales in central Stellwagen Bank along with the following birds:
80 Herring Gulls, 20 Greater Black-backed gulls, 3 Double-crested Cormorants, 2 Common Loons, 3 Northern Gannets, and 2 Wilson’s Storm-petrels. We tried but were unable to find any shearwaters, jaegers or waterfowl. The weather was also too dynamic to allow our plankton tow or deploying our Secchi disk.
We saw fewer birds than hoped for, but enjoyed a beautiful windy sunny morning on the ocean. The full trip report is available at trips33.blogspot.com.
Respectfully submitted,
Tom Robben