Tuesday 15th September, 2009.

Here we have a photo of two happy sods about to go whalewatching for the third time this holiday. How every indulgent. Still, it's good for the soul and there's no harm in it, eh? We're not sure if we should indulge ourselves this way again. The first two trips were great and it's hard to see how this one from Barnastable will be better. We've had another leisurely start as the tides dictate that the boat can't depart until 12:30pm. Let's drink a toast to the tides, then.

This is the Provincetown Lighthouse on the finger tip of Cape Cod's 'fist'. Beyond here to the east lies nothing except the Atlantic Ocean until you reach Europe. Makes yer fink, dunnit?

Today's trip is the best one yet. Nothing short of fantastic. We only see humpbacks, no finbacks but, when we say 'only see humpbacks' we really are getting complacent. Humpbacks are the stars of the ocean as far as we are concerned. They are like massive black dolphins in that they are so gregarious. Always doing something. Other whale species we have seen (sperm whales, southern right whales) simply come up to the surface, blow some spray out of their blowholes, show off a dorsal fin perhaps, and then dive down with a nice view of their tail. That is brilliant, of course it is, but humpbacks do all that and much more. They roll on their bellies like huge playful puppies wanting their bellies tickled, and flick the water with their flippers and tail. They 'snake' through the water with their head out, just because they can. They breach out of the water backwards (the classic humpback image) as they dive back down in search of a meal. However, it seems that only mature males do that as they show off in front of the females prior to mating. Those dirty buggers have done the dreaded deed and have now all swum back to the Caribbean. So it's left to the mature females to put on a show today. This is a shot of 'Nile' - she's a grandmother whose had eight calves over the years -and she's an expert feeder. Here, she is 'bubble fishing' and, having trapped the fish in the net of bubbles, she surges up through the water with her mouth wide open. You can see the upper jaw, the lower jaw, and the baleen through which she squeezes out the salt water as she closes her mouth, before gulping down the meal.

This is what 'Nile' is after. Schools of sanderling. It's what our North Sea puffins live on. We are pretty sure that we saw 'Nile' and her calf on our first whalewatch trip from Boston. Now, here she is again. In just two weeks her calf has gone from being a playful thing, swimming along in tandem at her side, to a creature mimicking its mother and trying to catch fish by itself. It is not being all that successful at the mo', but we can see that it will quickly getting the hang of it.

This chap is an immature male. About two-thirds the size of a fully grown adult. He's also trying to get the hang of this 'bubble fishing' malarkey. He can do the net of bubbles no problem, but keeps thrusting his head out of the water to the side of the fish. Hmmm, no doubt he'll keep improving. He'll have to, 'cos once the humpbacks leave the Stellwagon Bank, and migrate south to the Caribbean, they'll have only the fat they have put on through the summer to live on.

See? What did we tell you? Leave yer long-uns at home. You only need a short one here. 100mm zoom is all you need, other wise you can't get the whole whale in frame.

Back on dry land, we leave Barnstable and head west in search of Sandy Neck - a wonderful stretch of white sand we spotted as the boat left the harbour earlier. However, you can only get to it by 4WD and as the Starship Prius does not have that capability, we content ourselves with this beach. As you can see, we're not the only ones enjoying the late afternoon sunshine. As you can see, this is slightly out of focus due to David's eyesight and the fact that our zoom lense is not auto focus. Note to Dave and Vicky: get eyes tested at Boots when we get home.

From here we drive 'home', have some dinner, go back to the hotel and use up the camera batteries reviewing all the shots of humpbacks we took today.

What a brilliant day.