Photos by Hui-chen and MJ Klein
Part of the 2010 USA Trip Series
Day 3 found us up early and in the beautiful seacoast town of Gloucester, Massachusetts. The weather was perfect for what we had in mind that day. We began with a little ride around the town to see what it looked like, this being Hui-chen’s first time here.
It had been years since I was in Gloucester and I had forgotten how nice it is.
This is where we were going – to the 7 Seas Whale Watch. This article is geotagged at this location.
Our boat, Privateer IV, awaits us.
This is the Cape Pond Ice company, made famous in the movie, The Perfect Storm, and a famous landmark in Gloucester.
Soon it was time to board the boat and set sail for the whale grounds.
Leaving the harbor, the sea was calm and flat. Just look at the weather: perfect!
This is a shot of Hammond Castle, but it wasn’t clear which part is castle, due to the tree cover. I think the castle is to the left behind the trees in this photo.
We cruised for roughly an hour, out to where the whales feed and play.
This is me with my Panasonic GS-500 video camera and the Glidecam 2000. I wore this contraption so I could take videos and reduce the motion of the boat. I’ll show you the edited video at the end of this article.
This was our first while siting of the day: A Fin whale.
This is our first whale tail we spotted. This is of course, a Humpback whale.
The above 3 shots are a tail series. Hui-chen took over 700 photos and she got some fantastic shots like these.
Below is another series:
And another below:
When humpbacks want to dive deep, they arch their backs and lift their tails out of the water. This propels them downwards.
Watch this action in the series below:
Biologists identify individual whales by the shape of their tails and the markings on the tail, which are distinctive.
This is a shot of a mother and baby whale that we saw swimming together for a period of time. I also got them on video.
Another diving series below:
Humpback whales have white on their fins, and it looks green in the water.
All too soon it was time to leave. We spotted 11 Fin and 13 Humpback whales. On the way back to port, we suddenly found ourselves in a pod of Atlantic White Sided Dolphins.
The on-board biologist estimated the number of dolphins to be about 150.
The dolphins were criss-crossing along the path of the boat and having a great time playing in the water.
We passed this lighthouse as we were coming back into port.
This factory used to manufacture paints used on the bottom of boats, until it was determined that this type of paint harms the environment. Now this is an abandoned building.
After lunch in Gloucester, we drove around for a little tour with our friend Scott. One of the first things that Scott showed us is some places from the movie The Perfect Storm, which was filmed in Gloucester. This is The Crow’s Nest, which is a bar that was featured in the movie. But, the real Crow’s Nest isn’t located on the dock like the movie shows. It’s actually across the street from the dock.
This is the actual dock where the boat was tied up in the movie.
Scott says that this blue building is where they offloaded their catch in the movie. I’m going to have to go back and watch it again because I don’t remember!
We found this beautiful lighthouse while driving around.
Feel free to click on this photo and view the large size on Flickr.com. I recommend this photo for a desktop background!
This is part of the lobster boat fleet. We saw that quite a few boats were up for sale.
This is a lobster trap, or also called a “pot.”
In one of the shacks we saw perhaps the largest lobster claw we’d ever seen, hanging next to a shark’s jaw.
Since this was the July 4th weekend, there was a parade scheduled to take place. We didn’t want to get caught in the parade so we headed for the highway and left the area.
You can see people lining up for the parade. If we had waited for the parade, we would have been stuck there for hours.
Finally, we found the road out to the highway and got out of town just in time!
Below is the whale watch video, edited to show just the best parts.
Whale Watch Highlights from MJ Klein on Vimeo.
Now, we leave you with this preview photo of our next installment in this series. Can you tell where we’re going to go next?
Thanks for reading! Please leave us your comments and recommendations below, and do re-tweet this article using the Share This! service below!
Hmmm… you drove around Gloucester and no picture of the Gloucester Fisherman Statue (actually a memorial to those Gloucester fishermen that lost their lives at sea).
Nice whale watching pictures. I’ve never tried to take pictures of whales like that (since I’ve never been on a whale watch which is hard to believe considering where I live)… but I would think it woul be hard. I mean… by the time you see them… you have to aim, zoom, focus, and then try to get the picture. So the pictures of the whales are impressive.
mike01905´s last post ..Telecsope at High Rock Tower in Lynn- MA
hi Mike. the truth is, we never even saw the Gloucester Fisherman statue. i’ve seen it before, a long time ago, but i don’t remember exactly where it is. we drove around Cape Ann and to several communities to take a look but we never saw it.
you’re right – photographing whales is difficult and i think that Hui-chen did an excellent job of capturing what little can be seen above water. she took all the whale shots as i was handling the video camera (as shown in the article).
thanks Mike.
Well the Gloucester Fisherman statue is on Rt 127… just east of where the Annisquam River meets Gloucester Harbor.
From looking at your pics… from looking at where Rt 128 is in Gloucester… from looking at where your whale watch boat left from… and since you went to other communities (Rockport, Essex, etc)… you probably stayed in the Downtown Gloucester area (where Rt 128 and 127 meet) and probably didn’t travel down that end of Rt 127.
Do you remember where the lighthouse picture was taken??? It kind of looks like the lighthouse at Annisquam Point.
By the way… looking at your last picture… I won’t mention wher New England, Day 4 is at 🙂
mike01905´s last post ..Telecsope at High Rock Tower in Lynn- MA
Mike, we came into Gloucester from Route 128. we did not go down 127 at all. i don’t remember where the lighthouse photo was taken. we went all over and Scott was telling us where to turn, etc. so i don’t even know where we were, and unfortunately i didn’t have the GPS on for photo geotagging on that day. oh well, you know better than i do. take care, Mike.
Enjoyed your pictures and look forward to your next segment. I have never been to that area, but have done genealogy research for family there. People come to see the whales in the sound near us. We have Orcas too. They are the whales I love to see as they travel near the ferry to the islands here in the sound.
thanks Carolyn. i’ve never seen Orcas in the wild, so that would be a great experience to enjoy. wish we could see that! take care.
Hello Klein,
I enjoyed to see your pictures very much. You are using camera of Panasonic ? I really thought very nice light and shade. I heard Panasonic made this lens from my husband company’s equipment. He said so glad that you are using Panasonic stuff.
Have a nice day!
Emi
hi Emi. we are using a combination of photo equipment. our camera is the Nikon D80 and the lens is a Sigma optically stabilized 28-200mm zoom. we would be happy to test a Panasonic camera though! thanks Emi.