Whale Watching

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

Minke Whale on a Beautiful Day We left Montauk harbor today with beautiful blue skies and good visibility to search for whales and had just enough of a swell to give the passengers an exciting “ride”. We cruised along the south shore of Montauk and enjoyed great views of the bluffs and hills. As usual we saw some pelagic seabirds, either skimming the waters or diving for fish and although we were several miles offshore we also had many butterflies fly past the ship. > We then came upon a Minke whale, about 5 miles south of Montauk town. It surfaced several times in a few locations around the boat. Since there were patches of small fish under the ship we assume it was actively feeding. After leaving that whale we continued to cruise towards the southeast towards where we…

Wed July 10 Finback whale! 1st of this season, and another ocean sunfish We left on a warm afternoon, looking forward to relief from the heat and to find whales. Both were accomplished. As soon as we got past Montauk lighthouse, we felt relief from the stifling heat on land. We had reports of whales…

Humpback whales, sea turtle, and sunfish! What a special day we had – our first humpbacks of the season. The day was sunny, breezy, and chilly enough in the shade to make most of us wear sweatshirts, in other words a welcomed relief from the heat and humidity. We heard reports of whales off the Nappeague stretch, as well as further offshore. The NE winds helped us decide to head westward and we found whales off Ditch Plains. We first encountered a really small humpback, perhaps a calf or yearling. It was busy with searching for food on extremely long submersions. Later a larger humpback appeared and we stayed with it long enough to get excellent fluke shots and see some typical humpback behaviors. As we followed this whale to eastward for several miles, while doing so we had a…

A Big Minke Day Today’s Viking Fleet/CRESLI Whale watch started off with a dramatic fog bank that sweep over our boat as we were leaving the Montauk area.  The thick fog soon fell away and we progressed through calm seas and sunny blue skies for the rest of the day. After reaching a point about 12 miles from Montauk point we encountered the first of the Minke whales.  They were apparently feeding on the thick schools of small fish below us.  The adults and children aboard got many looks at these small baleen whales as they spent time around the boat.  We continued along at a leisurely pace and stopped several times as we encountered several small groups that day, for a total of 12 whales seen. Many small seabirds, Wilson’s Storm Petrels, where dipping into the seas around us…

We started out just where we left off, still finding cetaceans on every trip – ~70 short-beaked common dolphins.   What a gorgeous day to be on the water. While it took sometime before we found interesting animals, we did indeed find all kinds of critters. A small basking shark was our first aquatic vertebrate…