Normally, the Coast Guard is on the lookout for mariners in distress. But on Sunday crew members aboard a 270-foot cutter stationed in Portsmouth, Va. spotted a more welcome sight: two right whales swimming northwest of Menemsha in Vineyard Sound.
The sighting was made at 9 a.m. Sunday.
About 20 North Atlantic right whales were spotted south and southeast of the Vineyard on Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed. This is the second report of right whales seen near the Vineyard in a month.
On Feb. 15 six right whales were seen from the air halfway between the Vineyard and Nantucket. On the same day two more whales were seen swimming south of Nantucket.
Eight North Atlantic right whales have been spotted near Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket in the past week, including six sighted from the air on Feb. 15 swimming between the two islands. The other two were seen south of Nantucket.
Until a week ago the waters off of Race Point in Provincetown were a pageant of marine life, with divebombing gannets, 80-foot fin whales slicing the surface, dolphins and porpoises circling like gnats and docile North Atlantic right whales skimming blithely by, mouths agape.
Early this week David Damroth was strolling Zack’s Cliffs in Aquinnah and gazed across the gulf to Noman’s Land when he saw an eruption from the water a mile and a half out. It was a double spout, a trademark of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. For the next 45 minutes he watched as at least three animals romped about the surface.
This spring endangered Northern Atlantic right whales have been seen and photographed swimming in Vineyard waters. Marine scientists who monitor right whales, considered the rarest among marine mammals, reported seeing 57 whales off Noman’s Land and nearly a dozen south of the Vineyard two weeks ago. More than 200 whales, about half the known population, have been seen since January in Cape Cod Bay.