Whale Watching

Summer is still sizzling! While Labor Day weekend traditionally marks a time to celebrate the unofficial end of summer, the CRESLI and Viking Fleet team was hard at work finding whales in the waters off Montauk. Reports of whales and dolphins had us searching an area to our east before heading west along the shoreline….

Bookended by dolphins and scintillated by a sunset! Although passengers boarded the Viking Starship in the rain yesterday, the sun came out as soon as we set sail and stayed dry for the remainder of the trip. We began, almost immediately, with a group of inshore bottlenose dolphins, which were feeding on small patches of…

We never stopped looking and found them again! On a gorgeous day with excellent visibility, we headed out in search of cetaceans. We had reports of whales and dolphins near the lighthouse and we found them quickly, within 3 nautical miles. The humpback we saw was one we’d seen in late July, and there were…

Another multi-species day!   It was a beautiful day on the water, with unlimited visibility, and calm seas.  We had reports of dolphins and whales near Montauk and found both within a short time after passing Montauk Point Lighthouse. Groups of Inshore bottlenose dolphins were spread out around us, perhaps a total of 45 individuals…

Check this one off your bucket list! Passengers aboard yesterday’s whale watch excursion experienced the trip of a lifetime! It all began with a breaching humpback, which upon further investigation, turned out to be not one, but two whales! The possible mom and calf pair breached more than a dozen times, performing acrobatic twirls and…

Extraordinary is an Understatement! There are not enough superlatives to describe yesterday’s incredible encounters! For our 12th trip of the season, we headed off to search for whales a few miles off Block Island where we saw them on our previous voyage. The transit was marked by large patches of pelagic birds: hundreds of Cory’s…

Good things come to those who wait!   After a morning of wicked and lingering thunderstorms, the Viking Starship set sail under blue skies and calm seas for its 11th whale watch of our season. We quickly found a pod of inshore bottlenose dolphins, made up of between 30-40 individuals all actively feeding on bait…

Patience and persistence pay off! Our tenth trip of the season had us worker harder than usual to find cetaceans, but as with our other nine trips, we succeeded! We first headed south of Montauk following up on reports of whales, but instead of whales, we found several small pods of inshore bottlenose dolphins, collectively…

Our streak continues! With temperatures in the 70’s, calm seas, and absolutely unlimited visibility, we could not have asked for better conditions to search for cetaceans on our ninth trip of the season. Reports of whales brought us west of Block Island where spouts were immediately spotted. The first belonged to two humpback whales, surfacing,…

Just gets better and better!   On a comfortable day, with unlimited visibility, we were ready to find lots of cetaceans , and that we did. We had reports of dolphins “everywhere,” and whales where we’d seen them on our last, as well as closer to shore. Are assumption that the nearshore whales were juvenile humpbacks was correct. These juvenile humpback whales and dolphins were searching for and feeding on the abundant patches of Atlantic menhaden (AKA bunker). We watched as the whales fed via subsurface lunges. These were small humpbacks, probably no larger than 24 feet. Our first 4 humpbacks undertook no “surface” activity, but our 5th humpback was repeatedly flipper-slapping and surfacing lunging. Beautiful to watch.  We’re already looking forward to Wednesday’s trip!!  Join us. 300-400 Inshore bottlenose dolphins 6 humpback whales 200 Great shearwaters 10 Cory’s shearwaters…