Whale Watching

Yesterday’s trip was punctuated with sightings from the start, and not limited to cetaceans. Our first-of- the-season sighting of bunker (Atlantic menhaden), an extremely important prey fish for a myriad of marine predators, kicked off our departure past the lighthouse. And not surprisingly, shortly thereafter, we encountered a large pod of Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphin. The pod was separated into two distinct groups, each consisting of tightly-packed individuals including adults, juveniles, and a few neonates (newborns) diving and surfacing together, with occasional tail slaps on the surface. While the sighting was invigorating, we decided to use our time wisely and continue east where baleen whales were seen on previous trips. As we transited, the sea boiled almost continuously with bait fish and occasional tuna, before the largest thing of all broke the surface behind us: a submarine! A possible spinner shark…

A challenging but successful day! We left the dock expecting to escape from the heat and we did. We encountered wind and expected 4-5′ seas. We found a pod of about 20-10 Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins about 1.5 nautical miles from Montauk Point. We then headed ESE, experiencing the classic “old-time rock-and- roll” of 4-5′ seas for a few hours. We traveled through the area in which we’d found whales, dolphins, and pelagic birds on Monday 7/33/25. Spotting blows at distance was challenging due to all the white caps, and the wind, and waves. We searched and traveled and then at about 20 nm out, a finback whale blew 100 yards ahead of us! We could see the blows  (3 or 4 a few seconds apart, and the whale would go down for a terminal dive of 5-10 minutes, then come…

What better way to celebrate World Whale and Dolphin Day than aboard another magical Viking/CRESLI whale watch! Our transit yesterday brought us southeast towards an area we dubbed “cetacean heaven” on Sunday’s trip. At first, it appeared as if the bait and the whales/dolphins had moved on with zero bird activity and no sign of life near the surface. That changed as we reached an area markedly noisier than before. Here, hundreds of great shearwaters and terns patrolled the area and we encountered our first pod of short-beaked common dolphin. The dolphins were acrobatic and inquisitive, swimming around our vessel with repeated close approaches to the delight of those onboard. Shortly after, a series of blows were observed and investigated, while repeated large splashing events occurred just beyond them. The blows belonged to at least one finback whale, while a…

Sunday, July 20, 2025 It was absolute cetacean heaven at sea yesterday! We headed offshore, pausing only briefly to investigate some nearshore splashes and visible leaps, likely belonging to tuna and/or other large, predatory fish. Our transit was speckled with pelagic bird sightings, at times by the hundreds, before we encountered our first whale, a…

It was a beautiful day on the water yesterday with a refreshing breeze and cooler temperatures than those experienced earlier in the week. The whales were around and we found our first – a humpback about seven miles off Montauk. This whale was spending long intervals beneath the surface and popping up only briefly 200-300 yards away, making for a difficult encounter. We decided to continue in hopes of finding another individual, which we did, just ahead of the first. This whale, however, was also exhibiting long dive times and surfacing far away from the vessel and after photographic investigation post-trip, turned out to be the same individual as previously encountered. With little bait detected in the area, it is likely this whale was traveling (and quickly at that) in search of food. While quite natural an observation, we realize…

A spectacular afternoon with an interesting and well-known humpback whale and loads of dolphins! On a brutally warm and muggy day on land, we were all ready for a cooler day at sea. We headed towards the area where we’d been seeing dense patches of prey, birds, and cetaceans for the past week. The prey,…

This was a tremendous and memorable trip! We started out toward an area with heavy bait and numerous reports of cetacean activity. En route, we encountered a juvenile humpback whale that was spending brief intervals at the surface, just enough to give everyone a quick look, before we decided to move on. Within a few…

Oh, what a trip we had- 5 species of cetaceans!! Our 2025 season is getting better and better. Today’s trip initially brought us to a small group of ~20 Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphins. Quickly we began to find more groups, , and ultimately a massive aggregation of 300 individuals. We stayed with them for a while and then headed further offshore and found a zone with finback whales and their characteristic 20’ tall inverted coned-shaped blows. The water column was loaded with sand eels and the surface loaded with pelagic birds. We were able to get ID photos from about 6-8 finbacks, although we could see blows in every direction for a few miles.  After a while we decided to check out the humpbacks in the same area. Celebration, Loon, and a few others to be ID’d were there. Celebration regularly…

Wow, what a day we had on the water yesterday! Numerous reports of whales in the area had us excitedly heading out in search of some of the humpbacks we had seen on Wednesday’s trip. But to our surprise, our transit was ‘interrupted’ by the sightings of three finback whales less than halfway to our destination. The massive whales were feeding on sand eels, with one seen lunge-feeding on its side at the surface. Fin whales are extremely fast and can travel tremendous distances in a short time, so we enjoyed watching them for a bit, before they – and we – traveled on. About twelve miles offshore, we found blows belonging to two, and then four, and then five humpback whales. All types of feeding and surface displays were observed with one humpback kick-feeding at the surface, another open-mouth…

On yesterday’s trip, we followed-up on some reports of whale and dolphin activity to our south. We headed out under beautiful weather conditions, exchanging cool ocean breezes for the steamy conditions left behind on land. About two miles out, we had our first cetacean encounter with a group of Tamanend’s bottlenose dolphin. What was first believed to be a small group of a dozen or so ended up being 30-40 individuals swimming around the vessel. Everyone got great looks at the pod(s) before steaming our way south. Eventually we got into an area that was ripe with bird activity; Cory’s and great shearwaters, along with common tern were numerous, and bait was detected from 40-50 ft to the surface. This was a good area for whales, but none were yet found. So we traveled east until a large splash was…