Whale Watching

Check this one off your bucket list! Passengers aboard yesterday’s whale watch excursion experienced the trip of a lifetime! It all began with a breaching humpback, which upon further investigation, turned out to be not one, but two whales! The possible mom and calf pair breached more than a dozen times, performing acrobatic twirls and…

Extraordinary is an Understatement! There are not enough superlatives to describe yesterday’s incredible encounters! For our 12th trip of the season, we headed off to search for whales a few miles off Block Island where we saw them on our previous voyage. The transit was marked by large patches of pelagic birds: hundreds of Cory’s…

Good things come to those who wait!   After a morning of wicked and lingering thunderstorms, the Viking Starship set sail under blue skies and calm seas for its 11th whale watch of our season. We quickly found a pod of inshore bottlenose dolphins, made up of between 30-40 individuals all actively feeding on bait…

Patience and persistence pay off! Our tenth trip of the season had us worker harder than usual to find cetaceans, but as with our other nine trips, we succeeded! We first headed south of Montauk following up on reports of whales, but instead of whales, we found several small pods of inshore bottlenose dolphins, collectively…

Our streak continues! With temperatures in the 70’s, calm seas, and absolutely unlimited visibility, we could not have asked for better conditions to search for cetaceans on our ninth trip of the season. Reports of whales brought us west of Block Island where spouts were immediately spotted. The first belonged to two humpback whales, surfacing,…

Just gets better and better!   On a comfortable day, with unlimited visibility, we were ready to find lots of cetaceans , and that we did. We had reports of dolphins “everywhere,” and whales where we’d seen them on our last, as well as closer to shore. Are assumption that the nearshore whales were juvenile humpbacks was correct. These juvenile humpback whales and dolphins were searching for and feeding on the abundant patches of Atlantic menhaden (AKA bunker). We watched as the whales fed via subsurface lunges. These were small humpbacks, probably no larger than 24 feet. Our first 4 humpbacks undertook no “surface” activity, but our 5th humpback was repeatedly flipper-slapping and surfacing lunging. Beautiful to watch.  We’re already looking forward to Wednesday’s trip!!  Join us. 300-400 Inshore bottlenose dolphins 6 humpback whales 200 Great shearwaters 10 Cory’s shearwaters…

An epic trip unlike any this century! We headed out to sea to escape the heat. We had reports of dolphins and whales and headed SE and soon found a group of 50-60 inshore bottlenose dolphins, chasing their prey over an area of about 1 square nautical mile. After the dolphins we headed south to…

Dolphins, humpback whale, sharks, and more!   Sunday’s trip began with a bang! A gray seal rolled acrobatically in the water alongside our vessel as we sailed out of port. Then, only five minutes from the lighthouse, a breach was spotted by one of our sharp-eyed volunteers. We quickly turned course to find a juvenile…

Expectations Exceeded! After Wednesday’s incredible encounters and a weather-cancelled trip on Sunday, we headed offshore with high hopes that the whales observed last week would still be around for today’s cruise. That plan was quickly interrupted by two humpbacks appearing halfway into our transit, feeding and moving closely in association with one another. Upon further…

What a day at sea! We always begin each cruise by reminding passengers that we are sailing into the natural environment and have no idea what we will see or when. This trip was definitely a testament to that! We traded in the heat and haze of land for cool, ocean breezes traveling approximately 14 miles offshore in search of cetaceans. Visibility improved tremendously and conditions were highly favorable for spotting life at the surface. Despite this, no marine mammals were seen for the first two hours, but things were getting interesting. We passed through numerous debris ‘fields’, likely outwash from the Connecticut River stemming from the heavy rains that pounded New England earlier in the week. Then the water got very warm as we entered a warm-core eddy spinning off the Gulf Stream. Then came the flying fish, and…