Based on a phone message from the nice folks at Capt Bill's Whale Watch, and in spite of a rather dismal forecast, (so, if you've been paying attention, weathermen don't have much credibility with me this year, so if they say it's going to be bad, it likely will be ok) I decided to go to Gloucester to see if Coral was still around. The AM trip was ok, we had 3 calves all playing together around the boat. They were joined by the mom's and Regulus, so we had 7 surrounding the boat...but...no Coral.
The afternoon trip was different, the weather was going downhill, rumbles of thunder in the distance. The naturalist said Coral was her favorite, too, and we spent a few minutes of commisuration that neither of us had seen him in 2 years in spite of him being seen in the area. We came upon 2 whales, one was tail breaching repeatedly, the other was mysterious, here one minute, gone the next. He would not fluke up for an ID, but after a few minutes, came up near the boat. I noticed a white scar behind the blowholes and based on that, made my ID....it was Coral! The Naturalist was hesitant until a gentle fluke up confirmed the ID. Finally!!
Content, I didn't really care what happened the rest of the trip, but it got even better. Cajun's calf came over to the boat and entertained us with all kinds of activity near the stern. My 70mm zoom was too much, but I didn't want to leave to change lenses, so a few were just too close. Cajun came by after a while and gathered up the calf. When they were a distance away, the calf breached twice. Cajun, not to be outdone, breached after the calf's second attempt. Not a bad way to spend a dank, overcast day!