Whale Watching

Wednesday, August 28, 2019 Whales Close to Montauk   What started out as a cloudy and someone rainy trip turned into a productive day of whale watching.  After less than an hour we spotted some big splashes in the distance- there was a whale breaching and flipper slapping.  Unfortunately by the time we got to the area, with the overcast background, we were unable to find the whale.  We continued on our way and suddenly came upon 2 humpback whales and 18 bottlenose dolphin.  There was a lot of surface bait fish and the whales were feeding.The dolphins came into our area in 2s and 3s until there was a big group.  They swam around the feeding whales for some time and some passengers got some special pictures with a whale and dolphin in the same photo! They showed us…

A little sea mist on the horizon had everyone on board the Viking Starship becoming a spotter. Captain Dave began his search East of Montauk and we were soon rewarded with a large Finback whale feeding. A beautiful cone-shaped blow and the incredible power of this marine mammal enchanted everyone on board. Next we found a 2 Humpback whales feeding and got a fabulous tail wave. This is a whale we have seen before. We also managed to see a Blue Shark that was feeding near the Humpback whales. As we continued our search we were able to see a few Minke whales nearer the Montauk Lighthouse. We had reports of a cow-calf pair of Minkes, but were unable to confirm. Birds of note today included A Corey’s Shearwater and a number of Wilson’s Storm Petrels dancing on the waves…

Breaching Humpbacks, Minkes, and a few Great shearwaters and a mature Northern gannet! Another beautiful day on the water with whales, what more can you want? Our minkes were “stinky” and avoided being photographed, but were seen none-the-less. Our humpbacks showed us most of their repertoire of aerial behaviors.   Our first pair of humpbacks included…

Sun Aug 4 – Whale Watching Whale Trifecta! 2 Minke whales, 5 humpback whales (including a mom and calf), and a finback whale! 8 whales in all! What do you get when you have unlimited visibility, flat seas, and good eyes? Lots of whales. Shortly after heading out past the lighthouse, we spot our first whale, a minke whale. They are relative small baleen whales and this one was not only small, but also entangled in fishing gear. The gear was loosely wrapped, but still obviously having an effect. The Coast Guard was notified, then in turn notified the Center for Coastal Studies Marine Animal Entanglement Response Team. CRESLI sent photos and all folks are asked to keep an eye out (see https://drartiek-cresli.smugmug.com/…/2019-08-0…/i-VsXTmxz/A for a photo). All too sad to see, but we were glad to help. We continued on…

Success again – 3 Humpbacks, pod of bottlenose dolphins. and a Minke whale!! Once again, we left the sweltering heat and cooled off almost immediately after leaving the harbor (sea surface temperatures have been in the upper 60’s to low 70’s for a while). We headed towards an area where dolphins had been seen earlier,…

Bottlenose dolphins to start with humpback to end We had a long trip today with a sold out boat. We escaped the heat right away as we turned east at the jetty. We found 2 small groups of Bottlenose dolphins and a small ocean sunfish just west of the lighthouse.  We searched nearshore and offshore, didn’t find much else until we began to head back toward Montauk. At 6:30 we saw something flash off in the distance and the blow of a humpback about 2 miles ahead of us. It was doing inverted lob-tailing, partial breaching, tails throws, etc. and as we got closer a small fishing boat ran super-fast right to the whale, stopped way too close. The whale reacted by diving and tail-throwing once – then took off to the southwest, with 5-6 minute down times and just…

100 bottlenose dolphins to start, humpback and more bottlenose to end When we start our whale watch trip with unlimited visibility on sunny dry afternoon, we have great expectations. We hadn’t even gotten past the Lighthouse when we found a massive aggregation of inshore bottlenose dolphins – over 100!  We watched and followed as they were chasing their prey, driving them into tight circles and then diving. Adults, juveniles, and new born calves were all around us.  What a beautiful sight. We left them to continue their journey and ours, and headed towards where we had been seeing humpbacks whales for the past few weeks. We found a good sized humpback and stayed with it, observed it, photographed its dorsal fin and flukes for ID purposes. We were in neutral and ready to leave but the whale had other plans,…

Today we left Montauk with clearing skies and a cool breeze.  We traveled south and within an hour saw some splashes in front of us.  This turned out to be a group of dolphins.  These were the first bottlenose dolphins we have seen this year and they crossed right in front of our bow.  The group stayed very tightly together as they moved around the boat, sometimes “porposing” out of the water.  We stayed with them for some time before moving onward. After another 45 minutes we spotted our first whale; a large fin whale.  Fin whales are the second largest of the whales and second largest animal on the planet.  We watched it as it continually dove down (we assume to feed on the thick bands of small baitfish under the boat) and surfaced with that long conical blow…

Well, it was bound to happen.  After 29 consecutive trips with whales/dolphins since July 2017, we were unable to find them today. The haze and occasional limited visibility made it difficult to spot then from a distance.  We covered 45 nautical miles in our search but no whales or dolphins. There was bait, bunker, and a few pelagic birds, even an unidentified shark, and an ocean sunfish, but no cetaceans.  We will try again on Friday 9/19/19. One plus was the cool sea surface temperatures that kept us in sweatshirts, while folks were sweltering on land. Another plus was seeing a submarine headed out to sea. Totals: 1 unidentified shark 1 ocean sunfish2 Cory’s shearwaters 11 Wilson’s storm petrels Arthur H. Kopelman, Ph.D.President, Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island http://cresli.orghttps://drartiek-cresli.smugmug.com/ Instagram: @CRESLI_IncTwitter: @CRESLI_In

Sun July 14 Humpbacks Galore! Lunge-feeding, breaching, flipper slapping, and more Our first multiple humpback trip. Once again, we escaped the heat on land to find whales in water that was comfortably in the mid to upper 60’s. We began looking as soon as we traveled past Montauk light. Within a few minutes we found our first of 4 humpbacks. This one was intent on long feeding fives of prey near the surface and traveling due east without changing course. We got some nice … See More