I’m guessing at least some of our 19 passengers were a tad dumbfounded when told we weren’t just looking for whales amid the choppy waters off Cape Small last August. Our olfactories were also poised to smell for the leviathans.
“What do they smell like?” asked a New Yorker aboard the Buzzworthy, one of two rigid inflatable boats operated by New England Eco Adventures, which runs tours out of Portland and Kennebunkport.
“As if the Fulton Fish Market’s refrigeration failed during a summer heat wave,” I replied. “Or fishy flatulence.”
As the Buzzworthy’s deckhand and narrator, I had inhaled evidence of humpback whales on previous three-hour tours. Sometimes the spouts aren’t easily seen among high waves, but the nose knows.
And sure enough, Captain Chris Keefe — a lobsterman’s grandson and Marine Special Forces veteran who later skippered charters in places like the Bering Sea — picked up the stinky scent, as did several passengers aboard our 32-foot vessel.
Soon it was like a Pacific Life commercial. A mother humpback swam slowly but deliberately with her mouth agape while her calf clung close by her right pectoral fin. The waters were teeming with baitfish and mama wasn’t picky whether it was herring, mackerel, sardines or whatever else happened to be there.
Like most whales that venture into the Gulf of Maine between spring and fall, she was eating almost nonstop. That enormous mouth gulps everything, then the tongue forces water out through the baleen that hangs from a humpback’s jaw. She needs the protein to produce fat-rich milk for her calf so it can reach whale adolescence.
By late fall, mother and calf will head to warmer waters, where she stops feeding, hopefully mates again and continues a comeback story for a species once hunted to near extinction. Humpback numbers are now estimated at about 135,000 worldwide.
Mindful of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which requires boats to stay 100 yards from whales and even farther from the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale, the Buzzworthy maintained a respectful distance but had no say in how close they came to us.
The passengers oohed and ahhed as the whales swam just under the boat, barnacles clearly visible on the mother’s fins. Then, less than 10 feet off the port side — the left side of the boat — the sea percolated as small fish leapt for their lives while something big and formidable blew bubbles from below.
The oohs turned to screams when the mother humpback surged upward like a Polaris missile, splashing everyone aboard and rocking the Buzzworthy. Seconds later she sank back into the depths and, her hunger only partly satisfied, swam off with her calf in search of more schooling fish.
As the Buzzworthy trailed the whales, I repeated what another captain, Randy McNally, emphasized every time I worked with him: Plastics don’t belong in the ocean. Celebratory balloon launches, common in waterfront communities, often drift into the ocean and are not digestible by marine life.
Though a humpback may reach 50 feet or more and the fin whale even larger, their throats are surprisingly narrow. It’s not just fishing entanglements and ship strikes that kill whales. Discarded, non-biodegradable plastic is an increasing threat.
The humpbacks’ rebound is not shared by other species and cannot be taken for granted. Iceland has signaled a renewed interest in commercial whaling, while Norway continues what it considers a traditional industry. Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission in 2019. Ironically, even whale-watching can have unintended consequences. The documentary “Breached” shows passengers on Iceland tour boats later sampling whale meat in Reykjavik restaurants. Supposedly it tastes like beef.
Fortunately, it’s not on Maine menus. At Eco Adventures, we believe a live whale has far more value than a dead one. And there is plenty to see in Casco Bay and the Gulf of Maine, from seals hauled out on Halfway Rock to the ever-changing cast of marine life offshore.
But it’s the denizens of the deep that fascinate most and they were out in full force last summer. Captain Chris was lucky enough to encounter a pair of great white sharks near Bailey Island, site of Maine’s only fatal shark attack in 2020. I wish I had been on that trip. I had to settle for fleeting glimpses of blues, porbeagles and makos.
I’ve come to love the smell of whale breath.
It smells like victory.