Here is what a foam cup looks like after a dive a couple miles deep. The scientists (must be a little bit of curious kid left in these folks) wrote notes to themselves on cups then hung them in a mesh bag on the outside of the sphere during their dive. It’s about the size of a thimble when they come back up.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. We took the reservations only guided tour through their labs and across the institute’s docks. We saw Alvin, the manned deep sea submersible. Actually we saw the old one and the new one they are building. In March 2013 it begins diving trials with an ultimate goal of 21,000 feet. They do some impressive work from a really tiny space…maybe 6ft diameter sphere inside that houses 3 people. Can you say claustrophobic?

A giant bubble ring right along side the boat. A glimpse of a fin, a smooth humped back then the unmistakable snout of a humpback whale. A group of three were cooperatively bubble net fishing. They coordinate an air bubble release under water to corral a school of fish then chow down. Just amazing.
Overall we saw probably 8 different whales (My tail fluke coloration pattern identification skills are not so great). We saw many great tail flips as they dove and even saw a mother and her calf.
We had a great trip with Whale Watch out of Provincetown Mass.

We saw whales spouting. It was pretty far out to sea but recognizable. Always cool. We visited an out of the way sandbar that was the temporary home for about 400 grey seals on a low tide break. The combined barking or sort of cooing sounded like wind howling. The erratic scattering of little pods punctuated the generally quiet group as they hauled out in the sun. Another fun sight.