Sat Sept 6 – Whale Watching

Another special day on the Viking g Starship, breaching and lunge feeding humpback whales and loads of Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins

We had a cool, clear, and somewhat choppy adventure on antepenultimate (3rd from last) Viking Fleet/CRESLI whale watch. On of our volunteers saw a young humpback whale swimming in the waters right near her home in Montauk town, so we knew were to look.. For most of the season, the whales were further offshore , but today, we found them close to shore.

These were all juvenile humpback whales (<12 m long) and while some were feeding on sand eels in water over 65’ deep, others fed on the abundant Atlantic menhaden in shallower waters. At one point, a 35’ long (10.67 m) humpback conducted a full body breach about 35 feet off our port bow. While some were able to see this, it caught many off guard. It was beautiful to see, even after 37 years of seeing whales breach. Another humpback went under the vessel and came up to breathe 4-5 feet off the starboard side of the Starship. Another beautiful site to see. Ultimately, we saw 3 different young humpback whales, and around 100 Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins, and a slew of pelagic birds, a spinner shark, and another unidentified shark

3 humpback whales

~100 Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins

25-30 Cory’s shearwaters

35-40 Great shearwaters

50-60 Wilson’s storm petrels

1 spinner shark

1 blue shark