Whale Watching

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…

Another exceptional trip for Viking/CRESLI is in the books! With sunny skies, a refreshing breeze, and incredible visibility, it was already a great trip when we encountered a small pod of Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins close to shore. We spent some time with them, but wanted to move on with reports of humpbacks to our south. After spotting a couple of blows and seeing flukes (of diving whales) at the surface, we knew we found at least two humpbacks, but the surprise was on us as they suddenly appeared at the surface open-mouth feeding on the rich bait detected below. These whales were bubble-net feeding, a coordinated effort where a circular (spiral) ring of bubbles is created to confuse and corral small schooling fish such as sand eels, and they were doing it again and again, all around us as the…

What a wildlife spectacle we witnessed off Montauk yesterday! We always tell passengers how each trip is different and every outing brings with it a special uniqueness, but yesterday’s trip was both familiar and outstanding. Familiar in the sense that we’ve had days at sea like this before, yet exceptional and above and beyond what we ever hope to experience. The trip began with a small pod of Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins, not far from the lighthouse. As we watched, multiple small pods joined together, first into a group of about twenty, before gaining more individuals into what ultimately became a pod of at least 120 dolphins. It was beautiful to watch their synchronicity and to witness how responsible whale watching pays dividends to all involved; it was as if the dolphins returned their respect for keeping our distance and passively…

Awe Inspiring! What an amazing trip! We headed to an area where whales used to be incredible prevalent for many years, and where whale had been the day before as well as the past weeks. It took a while to get there, and on a day with unlimited visibility, we began seeing whales from several miles away. Humpback whales, finback whales, and short-beaked common dolphins were around us, next to us, under us for several hours. Our senior scientist/naturalist, Dr. Artie Kopelman, is still going through almost 1500 high resolution photos for good views of feeding and other behaviors, as well as photoidentification.  We saw whales in every direction but couldn’t get to all of them.  A more detailed list will come out in a few days. Don’t forget to make your reservations. We sail Sunday, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays,…

With the sun shining, a light, cool breeze, and nearly unlimited visibility, it was a perfect summer’s day for a whale watch. Under ideal sea and atmospheric conditions, we had our first signs of cetacean life, the tell-tale signs of a distant blow, approximately an hour after passing the lighthouse. We expertly followed the spout and waited for the whale, a mature finback, to surface. Typically, with fin whales, their speed, and long breath-holding times keep us a good distance away, but yesterday’s trip was an exception. This whale would surface, at first about 100-150 yards from our vessel, increasingly getting closer as we waited safely out of gear. Close approaches by fin whales are rare, but passengers got exceptional views as this whale, likely feeding on the dense patches of bait near the surface, appeared repeatedly around the vessel….

Another challenging yet successful trip with whales and dolphins. We headed out again to ostensibly cool off while looking for marine mammals. The relatively cooler water helped to curtain some of the brutal conditions and made things more comfortable than on land.  We had multiple reports of whales to the south and decided to head that way. As we traveled, we found a few pelagic birds and the numbers increased moderately, Cory’s shearwaters, then great shearwaters, and Wilson’s storm petrels. Eventually, we saw a humpback whale dive tdovetabout 350 yards ahead of us. This was a large individual, but the prey was in the upper 1/3 of the water column so the whale undertook a shallow, non-fiuking dive. We waited for the whale to resurface, but in the haze we must have missed it and after 15 minutes headed on….

A long, but utterly unique and successful trip with finback whale mom and calf, and some dolphins! We travelled to an area that is one of the major whale feeding areas off Montauk and found nothing. We continued ENE for a while and turned to head back on a more northerly route, and then we saw the massive blow of an adult finback whale, and a faint blow of her calf! This is a new finback whale mom/calf pair for us, and what a pair it was! The calf kept swimming under and around our bow, then mom came up close to us. We were being “mugged” by both whales. These whales stayed so close to us that we could not move. Doing this for nearly 4 decades, I (Dr. Artie Kopelman, CRESLI president and senior scientist) have never seen…