Sun Sept 4- Whale Watching
Another stellar trip with 5 humpback whales!!
This incredible season continues! We didn’t have to travel far from Montauk Lighthouse to find our first humpback. This was Scylla’s 2016 calf again. The propeller scars and damaged dorsal are hard to look at, but the resilience of this animal is a testament to its will to survive. This 6 year old whale is just almost 40 feet (12.2m) long, and was feeding on the bottom periodically and after a while came to the surface and first, we saw a massive “tail-throw,” followed by multiple bouts of pectoral flipper-slapping, and rolling over, sometimes right next to us on the starboard side (our engines were out of gear, of course) and right under our bow. Just amazing. A small private boat was nearby and appropriately remained motionless as this whale swam and flipper-slapped . The whale let loose with a trumpet-blow” as it dove just ahead of the small vessel. A trumpet blow, i.e., the exhalation has a distinctly audible trumpet-like sound, is often an agonistic sign – a warning to the folks on the vessel. Scylla’s 2016 calf (AKA NYC0224) came over to us on the next surfacing and also trumpet-blew. That was our sign to leave this whale alone.
We saw another humpback breach a few miles away and headed there. The breaching stopped and the whale was feeding and diving in shallow water and only undertook low fluking dives, at least 6 of them. We left this whale and searched for others. Our 3rd whale was in extremely shallow water, inshore of us and we were in 22 feet of water. We watching bunker begin to jump and saw this young whale surface lunge through a patch of bunker. What a beautiful site!
15 minutes later we were with a fourth whale in slightly deeper water. There were layers of bait on the bottom and about from the surface to 15 feet. We watched the whale dive repeatedly , full-fluking dives, and saw it release a massive fecal plume. We had to head in, but passed by another humpback, this one dove next to us and we recognized it from the fluke patterns and the foul-fetid stench of its blow.
An amazing trip!!
5 humpback whales
35 Great Shearwaters
12 Cory’s Shearwater
1 Manx Shearwater
1 Northern Gannet
10 Willets
1 shark (unidentified)
Photos and videos soon