Whale Watching

As August (and soon summer) draws to a close, we could not have asked for a better day to explore Long Island’s marine ecosystem. With unlimited visibility, blue skies, and a crisp breeze, it was a privilege to head west along Long Island’s east end searching for marine life. Pelagic bird sightings were limited at first, but began to pick up with numerous Cory’s and great shearwaters observed gliding over a calm sea. A small pod of Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins were spotted about two miles from shore and we spent some time with them before moving on to a second, larger pod to their west. We continued on for a bit and decided to move south in our search. About five miles out, we encountered a series of splashes belonging to a much larger group of Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins, which…

With summer vacation soon ending, the mood onboard the Viking Starship yesterday was excited and joyful as we left the dock under beautiful blue skies, a light breeze, and unlimited visibility. We sailed passed historic Camp Hero and Montauk Point Lighthouse before finding numerous schools of bunker, visible as dark patches at the surface. Here, hundreds of shearwaters (primarily Cory’s and great) flew, fed, and rested with full bellies at the surface. The fish and bird life continued for the first couple of miles of our journey as we sailed southeast towards productive waters where cetaceans (whales and dolphins) were seen in abundance on previous trips. The unlimited visibility provided excellent views of Fire Island, and the bow was full of families and friends enjoying the voyage. To our surprise, despite its beauty and an abundance of bait detected by…

Not wanting to repeated the previous day’s effoprts, we headed out to investigate several different whale spotting territories and had success The conditions were excellent, the visibility was limitted to around 5 miles at first, but opened up to at least 14 miles. We headed south soon found a scalloped hammerhead shark and a few pelagic (open ocean) birds, before we eventually found two humpback whales in an area where the depth was 125′ and their prey (most likely sand eels) were patchily distributed on the sea floor. One whale was ahead of us and one on our stern, Both dove several times before any photos were taken, both stayed down for anywhere from 8-15 minutes. After the “last” dive was at 15:00 minutes long and counting, and we’d unseccessful in getting photo ID’s, and had been with these whales for 27 minutes,…

Only two days after Hurricane Erin stirred up nearly 20-ft seas off Montauk, we headed off unsure of what we may or may not encounter. Shortly after steaming beyond the inlet, we encountered a small pod of Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphin, a species we typically find much closer to the open ocean beyond the Point. We continued on after a short stop and found a humpback whale just a couple of miles southwest of Camp Hero State Park. We spent time with this whale, a juvenile, which would surface every three to four minutes, likely feeding on bait detected near the bottom. We eventually headed east where humpback and finback whales were spotted the day prior. Almost immediately, more Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins were spotted, in small groups at first, not exceeding 20-30 individuals per pod. This continued for a few miles…

We headed out after the effects of Hurricane Erin were settling down. Often after these kinds of events, we are sure what might become of the whales’ prey and the whales. We decided to head towards where we had been finding whales over the past few weeks. We were pleasantly surprised by finding whales significantly closer than we expected. At first we saw the characteristic towering blows of finback whales, a mom and her calf. After a while, we headed towards a nearby pair of humpback whales, also a mom and her calf. In both cases always a special treat to see. The humpbacks could be seen open-mouth feeding and filtering – again, always a pleasure to see, whether you’re a newbie or have been at it for nearly 4 decades. We ended the trip while looking at our 5th…

Another successful trip with 5 species of cetaceans and a loggerhead sea turtle! A rich diversity of marine mammals and sea turtles were seen during today’s trip on the Viking Starship. The capacity crowd got to see things that many had never seen before. We headed to the same area where we’ve been seeing whales and…

A beautiful day on the water rich with whale and dolphin sightings! Yesterday was our first Saturday excursion of the year and what a precedent it set! We exchanged the sweltering heat on land for cool ocean breezes under clear, blue skies and excellent visibility. Although we planned to travel ten or more miles to find cetaceans, the whales had other plans, stopping us only a few miles out to investigate a flipper-slapping juvenile humpback. This individual lay belly-up at the surface slapping both flippers at the surface, a form of communication with other humpbacks. We watched the activity until the whale began short, consistent two-minute dives, likely feeding on the rich schools of bunker nearby. A brief shark sighting was made and the whale surprised us with an inverted lobtailing, just as, a second humpback, not surprisingly, was observed…

Continuously breaching humpback whale and so much more! This summer of exceptional trips continues. Have you ever watched a young humpback whale breach for 20 minutes at 15 to 20 second intervals continuously? That happened to us. We saw this well from 5+ miles away and watched and counted as a breach over and over again until it got close.  It continued to breach and chin slap repeatedly at 15-20 second intervals for a while. Use the link below to see slow-motion videos and photos. We saw Loon, Strikeout, and 4 humpback whales that haven’t been seen before or named. The whales were feeding at/around the sea floor (most likely on sand eels). We had the pleasure of spending 3 hopurs amongst a very active group of whales.  It was tiring, after coming back from our successful offshore trip, just…

Perseid meteors, whales, dolphins, basking shark and more! We left Sunday evening to begin our 36 hour trip to the Great South Channel. With enough bunks for 40 people below deck, many decide to sleep out under the stars and meteors. Morning brought us an exquisite sunrise. We had reports of where some whales had been seen by our colleague, Dr. Jooke Robbins, Director of the Humpback Whale Studies Program at Center for Coatsal Studies (https://coastalstudies.org/). This was our 26th offshore multiday trip, and the 25th to the GSC. Interestingly, most of our trips involved starting at almost exactly where Dr. Robbins suggested.  The trip was phenomenal, with 30 or more humpback whales, as well as a basking shark. Dr. Artie Kopelman, CRESLI’s president and senior naturalist had his hands full – almost 2800 high resolution photos are being reviewed. So…

Fin Whale Nirvana! There has been a certain level of magic with our whale watching trips this season. Every trip is different, but this year, each trip is very different from the last and we lay witness to beautiful and unexpected encounters at sea. Yesterday was no exception, but for a short while, it did not feel that way. Our sunny skies turned gray shortly after leaving the dock and there was a strong, gusty wind with a bit of chop. The usual sightings of bottlenose dolphins near the lighthouse were lacking and as we headed south towards an area where whales and dolphins were bountiful on previous trips, we saw few birds and no cetaceans. Then we headed east, putting the strong wind to our back, and turning toward sunny skies as if a switch had been flipped. Almost…