Whale Watching

Sunday Aug 26 Whale watching Humpbacks, Fin whales, and Minke whales again Our 21st consecutive trip with whales started with a breaching humpback near Montauk.  This young humpback, like so many others showed signs of entanglement.  We headed to another area (about 11 nm out) where we found 2 whales that we believe were fin whales, but couldn’t get good enough views to confirm absolutely. On our way back in, we found another breaching, flipper slapping humpback and a minke whale. Totals 2 Humpback Whales 2 Fin whales 1 Minke whale 12 Cory’s Shearwaters 1 Scopoli’s Shearwater 4 Great Shearwaters

Wed Aug 22 Crazy Breaching Young Humpback Our streak of successfully finding whales continues (12 consecutive trips in 2018, 8 in 2017); 122 out of 132 trips since 2009 (92.42%). This trip brought us westward and we found a young humpback breaching like crazy.  From afar, we saw 5 breaches – later when nearer this…

Wednesday August 8, 2018 7 Humpbacks and 1 Fin Whale! We found whales again.  As usual, when it’s warm on land, we were glad to get offshore, but it was still pretty warm. We didn’t have to go far to find our first whales – 2 humpbacks, a mom and her calf.  The mom had…

Whale Watching 5 Species of dolphins and whales!! Another successful Viking Fleet/CRESLI whale watch on the Viking Starship! This time, we were able to find finback whales, minke whales, and humpback whales, as well as bottlenose dolphins  and short-beaked common dolphins – 5 different species! The whales were spending long times down feeding near the…

Sunday, July 29, 2018 4 Cetacean Species Day! Well we found them again. Finback whales, minke whales, humpback whales, and short-beaked common dolphins. The whales weren’t particularly “cooperative,” spending long times down feeding near the sea floor, but they are there to feed. We found 5 finback whales including 2 mom/calf pairs, 5 humpbacks, 2 minkes whales, and about 150 dolphins. The dolphin rode our bow wake and rode the bow wakes of some of the fin whales. Birders on board were happy to find loads of pelagic birds too. Totals: 5 finback whale 5 humpback whales 2 minke whales 150 short-beaked common dolphins 125 Cory’s shearwaters 55 Great shearwaters 20 Sooty shearwaters 4 Manx shearwaters 7 Parasitic jaegers 1 immature Northern gannet

Wed July 25 More Humpback Whales! It had been a week since we were out last. We wondered whether the stormy weather had affected the prey distribution and whales, but had reports of whales, and Capt Dave had seen whales earlier in the day while fishing. We headed out, and chose a path that would…

Wed July 18 Whales, whales, and more whales! We returned to the area where we found the whales feeding on sand eels on 7/15/18 and the whales, sand eels, and pelagic birds were still there, with new additions! We found 2 minke whales, 4 finback whales, and about 15-20 humpback whales again, feeding voraciously on…

Sunday July 8 3 Species of Whale, 1 Species of Dolphin, and 11 species of Pelagic and Coastal Birds!  What an amazing day on the water. We had reports of whales from Saturday, but we had friends out there and said they weren’t seeing anything. With no information except our 30 year knowledge of whale feeding areas near Montauk, Captain Dave and Naturalist Dr. Artie Kopelman formulated a plan and headed to an area that has almost always has been productive. Within an hour of passing Montauk Light, we had our first minke whale. Like other minkes, this one was elusive. As we were waiting for the minke to resurface, we saw the blows from a larger whale about 1.5 nautical miles (nm) away.  Off we headed to find our second species – humpback whale.  The humpback breached about 1 nm ahead…

Sun July 1 Whales and Dolphins! Our first trip was a success. We had reports and coordinates for hundreds of dolphins and a minke whales sighted this morning and a humpback sighted yesterday. Off we went to find them and we did. The minke was “stinky minke” seen by just a few people. As we…

Whale Watching Schedule – 2018 We are happy to announce the schedule for 2018. We had 100% successful sightings in 2017 and are excited to get back out there this summer! There has been a time change and an additional date added. We will begin sailing on Sunday July 1st and continue thru Sunday September…