Humpback whales, two of them, were captivating boaters and those along the shoreline last week as they rose and dove into the waters of Penobscot Bay, as close as the mouth of Rockport Harbor. On Friday, June 21, one was making its way along Eggemoggin Reach in East Penobscot Bay, heading toward the Deer Isle Bridge, following schools of fish. They like herring, young mackerel, and krill, according to the Maine Dept. of Marine Resources.

 

Whales were hunted hard during the 19th Century in the Gulf of Maine, but now they now delight those who have the opportunity to spot them.

 

On June 11, nature photographer Christopher Johnson was aboard the schooner Lazy Jack, sailing out of Camden Harbor on a two-hour afternoon cruise.

 

He had with him his Nikon Z8 with a Nikkor Z 180-600mm telephoto lens, and he was: “thinking I would photograph some shorebirds, lighthouses and maybe get a few good landscape shots of the coastline. After only about 30 minutes we started to see the whales surface and feed. There were two humpbacks, both thought to be juveniles.

 

“A few days later, I discovered that one of the whales had been previously documented as humpback whale ‘hashtag’ by happywhale.com - and later the ID was confirmed, which is identified by the hashtag like mark on the right side of the back of its tail. The last documented sighting was in Nova Scotia in 2021.”

 

Johnson, from Michigan, was in Maine for a vacation – he visits friends every few years who live just outside of Camden – and the whale sighting took place on his last day in Maine.

 

See more of his photos on Facebook and Instagram.

 

Meanwhile, Lobsterman Jeffrey Dodge, of Warren, was checking his traps in outer Rockport Harbor when a whale came close to his bow, rising up out of the water, before diving back down to find the school of fish it was tracking.