At last,
Monday the 19th dawned with blue skies, bright sun, and calm seas.
Mobile Team 2 arrived at Washington Oaks State Park at 10:46 AM and were just
getting their gear out when Mark Turner spotted white ruffles in the water. Day
leader Donna Drevniak called Jim, who arrived quickly to confirm a single right
whale. The Air Cam, with Joy and Becki, arrived just after 11:30 AM and almost
passed it by since it was submerged for several minutes at a time. We forwarded
photos to our colleagues at Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
(FWCC) for a provisional ID and learned that it was a juvenile, not readily
identifiable in the Right Whale Catalog. This was the first sighting of the season by one of our teams, and the first photographs of the season from the Air Cam.
Calls
came from the Marine Resources Council’s (MRC) Hotline reporting another whale
just to the south of the St. Augustine Pier. Mobile Team 1 got into position
and the Air Cam searched the area for over a half hour, without success. As
further information came in, we believe that it may have been a humpback whale,
whose movements tend to be quicker and more random than right whales, making
them much harder to locate.
Tuesday
arrived with some of the calmest seas we have observed in our many seasons. At
10:13 AM, Sally Thomas, who had recently attended an MRC right whale lecture,
called the Hotline to report a sighting in New Smyrna Beach. Four minutes
later, Mark Atkinson, on duty with Volusia County Beach Safety and Ocean
Rescue, confirmed the sighting. Chad Truxall, Executive Director of the Marine
Discovery Center in New Smyrna Beach, located and stayed
