2010 Rates and Information

*2010 Price: $155 per person per day (*$10 off on each Hatteras trip for two or more days in a 10 day period - so $145 per person/day)

*Spring Blitz Special $135 per person per day if you take 5 or more trips with us from May 20th thru June 6th

  *Meeting time  5:30 am at Hatteras Landing Marina in Hatteras, NC for Hatteras trips from May to early August.  We depart for these trips at 6:00 am!  Depending on food availability at our marina, our departure time may be earlier - we will let participants know if this is the case!

            *Duration : 10-11 hours  

We have decided to keep our prices the same as last season even though fuel prices are creeping up again.  This, we hope, will encourage more of you to join us in 2010!  But if fuel prices become ridiculous, we may be forced to add a small surcharge-just enough to keep our costs on target.  There are also discounts for groups of eight or more passengers taking a trip together, ask us if you are interested.  As in the past ,we are open for charters if you would like to organize your own group of participants for a day offshore! 

  Most of the pelagic trips we run during the warmer months visit the Gulf Stream- a highly dynamic, warm water current that passes very close to Cape Hatteras.  The Gulf Stream moves generally in a northeasterly direction.  Near Cape Hatteras, the Gulf Stream meets the southbound Labrador Current.  The latter is a cold water current, which has considerably less velocity than the Gulf Stream, but nevertheless plays and important part in creating the dynamic marine ecosystem along the west wall of the Gulf Stream.  The west wall of the Gulf Stream is usually 20 to 25 miles from Hatteras Inlet.

  While many species of pelagic seabirds feed primarily along the west wall of the Gulf Stream, some, such as the Black-capped Petrel (a regional specialty) are found primarily a few miles seaward of the Gulf Stream edge.  Others, such as tropicbirds, may be found in the relatively unproductive Gulf Stream interior.

  On some days the west wall of the Gulf Stream is easy to spot, as cobalt blue water meets shelf water that is green "as a gourd".   At other times, particularly if the stream is a bit farther offshore, the change might be subtle and there can be a large area of "blended water" between the shelf water and the axis of the stream.  The axis is where the "hard current" is located.  The current generally flows on a northeasterly heading of about 2 to 4 knots.

  There are a number of seabirds typically associated with Gulf Stream water in the western North Atlantic.  These are Black-capped Petrel, Audubon's Shearwater, Band-rumped Storm-Petrel, White-tailed Tropicbird, Red-billed Tropicbird, Masked Booby, and Bridled & Sooty Terns.  Many of the rarities we see, Bermuda Petrel, Fea’s Petrel, & Herald Petrel, are seldom found away from this feature, but that might be more of a coincidence than a real association, because we see a number of cold-temperature species in the Gulf Stream with great frequency, Greater Shearwater, Sooty Shearwater, & Wilson's Storm-Petrel.

  In any event, for most of the spring and summer, the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras is probably the most consistent (and convenient) place in the western North Atlantic for finding a variety of pelagic seabirds on any given day.  Getting there usually only takes between 2 to 2.5 hours of traveling each direction, so most of our day is spent in or along the Gulf Stream.