This post was updated 2016-09-16 at 9:40am.
We only allowed ourselves ONE WEEK to publicize this trip, so as not to detract from other more established September pelagic birding trips, such as the Maine Audubon trip on 9/17.
click on the arrow heads to view the video...
PRIMARY TARGET: We will search MANY nautical miles looking for GREAT SKUA.
DO TWO EXTREME PELAGIC TRIPS, both in daylight, back-to-back, in one weekend, September 17-18, 2016.
And get a good night's sleep in between them! All within 24hours: 1pm Saturday to 1pm Sunday.
EXTREME DISTANCE & AREA COVERED:
420! miles to view and photograph wildlife on the exciting GOM Gulf Of Maine.
Square miles covered will be multiples of most other pelagic bird watching trips.
This is TWO DAYLIGHT crossings of the GOM long-route, across the exciting GNATS transect, crossing the deep Jordan Basin, and most exposed to cold rich Scotian waters coming in from the Arctic's Labrador Current, just north of Brown's Bank and the Northeast Channel.
210 miles across the GOM (ship departs 2:30pm from Portland, Maine, to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia) on Saturday, then sleep in Yarmouth hotel ( half-mile taxi or walk to 417 Main St, to Rodd Grand Yarmouth hotel ), and then....
210 miles back across the GOM on Sunday morning (arriving back in Portland ME around 1pm).
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EXTREME VIEWING:
Our group will have unprecedented access to this ship's BRIDGE for viewing and photography (for most of both legs, both days of the round trip), plus open viewing areas on the left and right sides, plus open viewing in the stern.
Including bridge access, this is a unique first-time experiment on this high-speed but smooth pelagic ferry, and it may not be repeated again. Be the first, perhaps the only bird watchers to have this experience.
WILDLIFE:
Seabirds guaranteed, and whales probable. Possibly including GREAT SKUA (see the image below, from one of Richard Crossley's books), Northern Fulmar, Black-legged Kittiwake, Jaegers, Shearwaters, Storm-petrels, Phalaropes, Alcids, Northern Gannet, etc. Note that this may be the best regular daily route for finding Great Skua's in the USA, and this IS our #1 Target Bird.
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This is the eBird map for Great Skua, as of 2016/9/12. Red icons were reports in last 30 days (9/4 and 9/1 respectively). Note that the concentration of skua reports further north in the GOM may be largely a reflection of the greater effort of ships and bird watchers searching for them in those areas. Much less effort has been invested in the route of the CAT ferry...
Here is the comparable map for South Polar Skua, as of 2016/09/12. Red icon's from 8/13 & 8/24...
REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED:
Contact robben99@gmail.com to register, as soon as possible.
Register first, and then payment/ticketing mechanics will be described.
GROUP INFORMATION:
Group is limited to the first 25 bird watchers who register.
Hotel in Yarmouth is approximately $105 for room with two beds.
Special ferry group rate (discounted 30%) for this trip only:
Round trip for Adult $135.80 USD and Senior $130.20 USD.
Do NOT pay for anything until you have contacted me to register.
THIS IS AN INTERNATIONAL TRIP:
You must have an unexpired PASSPORT and be ready to provide this information:
--- Passport number, expiry date, issuing country, nationality.
--- Date Of Birth.
--- Name, address including state/province, cell # (for emergency contact) and email (confirmations and emergency contact).
AND YOU MUST BRING YOUR PASSPORT WITH YOU.
THIS IS A PUBLIC SHIP:
This trip can reveal some excellent birds and whales, but this is a public 7-days-a-week ferry, not a private dedicated pelagic birding trip. We have been granted the best views possible on this ship, but many of the birds will be distant, and few will be as close as we would like (especially because we will be high over the water). If this is the first time you will be seeing a bird species, this unique trip may not provide the close-up view you would prefer. If you want a top-notch fully dedicated seabirding trip in the GOM, we highly recommend the Maine Audubon annual fall pelagic trip, including its close-up looks at seabirds (partly because they chum the water, and partly because they follow individual seabirds to get as close as possible for good viewing):
Bar Harbor Pelagic Trip 2016 | Maine Audubon
Seabirding is an "acquired taste", either on a dedicated ship or on a commercial vessel at sea, but once it hooks you, there is no giving it up.
DEPARTURE & DOCK:
Arrive at Portland, Maine dock one hour before 2:30pm ship departure. Here is our meeting point, this small building called "12 Ocean Gateway Pier" but not on any GPS! Enter "1 Commercial Street, Portland ME" into your GPS to get you close, within two blocks....
This aerial map shows our meeting point, and two nearby parking options. I have mostly used the open lot at $10 for 24hours (at the intersection of Thames and Hancock streets), but if this open lot fills you may need to use the more expensive parking building nearby, which was $30 for 24hours in 2015, but was hiked surprisingly this year to $50 for 24hours (which I did not realize until 9/18 at checkout)!. Your credit card is required for both parking areas. Click on this map to expand it, and then press ESC key to return...
If you may want to do car pooling, please let me know.
THE SHIP:
Maine to Nova Scotia Ferry Service | The CAT - Bay Ferries << Overview
Ferry Information | The CAT - Bay Ferries << General information.
A few birders have taken this ship this (its first GOM) year and reported it to be stable and smooth.
RECONNAISSANCE TRIP ON SEPT.12-13:
To prepare for our Sept.17-18 trip, I did a reconnaissance trip on the CAT ferry on Sept.12-13, which was the same day that Dr. William Barney Balch of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences was doing his crossing associated with this Gulf of Maine North Atlantic Time Series (GNATS) program, an 18-year time series funded by NASA to validate ocean color satellites and to examine the changing Gulf of Maine.
Here is Dave Drapeau of Bigelow Lab, launching an XBT expendable probe ( What is an Expendable Bathythermograph, or “XBT”? ), with a very long wire attached (you can see the copper wire glinting in the sunlight). This probe drops rapidly (1m/sec) into the GOM, recording the temperature against the depth of the probe, which shows many things, including how stratified the water has become. Stratification can reduce vertical mixing of nutrients and dissolved oxygen, which reduces photosynthesis and primary productivity, and limits the entire food web...
The descent of the XBT projectile (www.aoml.noaa.gov/goos/uot/xbt-what-is.php ) produced this chart of water temperature vs depth, showing top layers much warmer. This is just one of the MANY things being measured and collected during these crossings...
Here is one view from the bridge, as the CAT ferry approaches entry into Yarmouth harbor as it gets dark. The top 30% of this photo shows the darkening sky... click the image to enlarge, and press ESC key to return...
Note that there were several days of NORTH WINDS between this 9/12-13 trip and the weekend trip on 9/17-18, so most of the many jaegers on 9/12 were presumably gone south by the weekend.
