Saturday 8/27/22 Species Report

2 humpback whales! 🐋
10 bottlenose dolphins 🐬
Dozens of cownose rays
4 blacktip sharks 🦈
1 osprey 🦅

I took it easy photographing the whales today, our dear friend Ann Maries , who sell all the merchandise on board for us has been sick> I could tell I have been in charge of the shirts for the last week or so as they were a mess so i concentrated on getting everything organized on the boat while all the passengers enjoyed the whales and shark and more lol

 

 

Legality aside, two major factors are “overlooked” by managers: localized depletion which can ruin fishing nearby and the role of menhaden in the ecosystem providing nutrition for the marine food web.

It would be a different story if the boats were smaller and family owned like they used to be. Back then, private commercial fishing boat owners would head out for the day, take 50,000 or so bunkers for trap bait and head back to the dock, offload and have a beer. Things have changed, not just for the menhaden fishery, but for fisheries all over the world. The little guys are out, and massive industrial scale vessels now rule the sea.

 

read more here https://www.tapinto.net/towns/belmar-slash-lake-como/sections/opinion/articles/omega-protein-is-reduction-fishing-off-of-new-jersey-again

Passenger Patty writes today:

This. Is. Why. I. Go. This is #40. An approximately 11 year old humpback. After looking where some whales were supposed to be, and the ocean turning into a Disney E ticket ride, we were heading back into the marina. Then, just south of Bradley Beach, this fella shows up. It started with a few shallow dives, a lunge feed and lots of wondering where next. As it started to drizzle the naturalist says, “whales like this weather, you never know, it just may….Breach!!!” And this show began. Tail throwing, and several full breaches! You can see how close to the beach we were! It was worth being in the rain to see this. Time to clean some camera gear!

Another great day, book your trip now! Tell you friends

Wednesday 8/24/22 Species Report Morning Trip

1 humpback whale 🐋
Cownose rays
Ospreys 🦅

Wednesday 8/24/22 Species Report Afternoon Trip

2 humpback whales 🐋
Cownose rays
Ospreys 🦅

Wednesday late afternoon trip

3 humpback whales

We had a great day whale watching today we saw 3 humpback whales with one of the smallest crowds we have had all summer about 35 people on board. Everyone had great sight lies and most were first timers who could not believe they were seeing humpback whales with the jersey shore in the background and NYC in the distance the trip was 3.5 hours join us soon. This has been our best year ever, and don’t forget to get your jersey shore whale watch souvenirs.

Here are a few photos from today,

Linda writes:

Another beautiful day on the water! Headed out of the inlet and went north because there were reports of whales between Long Branch and Sandy Hook. With NYC serving as the background, we found 2 humpback whales. They are 2 whales we have seen several times this year: # 11 and # 73. Well # 11 was first seen in the NJ/NY area in 2011 and he was the eleventh whale identified by Gotham whale (currently 263 individual whales have been identified). This whale is locally called Jerry because he was first seen on Jerry Garcia’s birthday. Soon he should be given his formal name as an adult by the breeding ground..Jerry is special because he has propeller marks aong his side that will always be present. Although he was injured he is fine! His picture is on flyers telling boaters to slow down and look for whales. Today was a good example of some boaters not paying attention and just going fast through an area were the whales were present.
It was fun seeing these 2 whales swimming along, seeing their tails and flippers, a lunge feed, and several close visits near the boat. Captain Alan gave us an extra 1/2 hour to enjoy the whales and then it was time to leave. On the way back, another whale was spotted but we needed to catch the bridge. We also saw cow nosed rays and jelly fish along the way. The person I met that was the furthest from Belmar was from Spain! He was seeing the Atlantic Ocean from the other direction. It was a fun adventure.

 

 

Excellent trip today, 6 whales!! and a small pod of dolphins on our way back wrapping up a perfect day 🐋🌊🐬☀️❤️

I didn’t take many photos i was pretty busy selling jersey shore whale watch shirts

Friday 8/19/22 Species Report

3 humpback whales 🐋
2 ospreys 🦅

I will add more photos in a few hours

So this must be peak whale watching season here in New Jersey. Book your trip now can you tell where we were today ?

 

Linda writes the review today :

Wow! It seems this summer I have used that word many times to describe a particular whale watching trip. Several times I have said that this might be ”the best whale watching trip ever”. I think today was THE best!
Started off by going south out of the inlet because whales we’re reported there past 2 days off of Belmar and south to the Manasquan inlet area. Less than 1/2 hour after leaving the dock we had located a whale. This whale was throwing his tail around and looked like he was having fun. Later, we came upon a whale in the Spring Lake area and oh what a find! To see a whale breach is an incredible thing. To see it breach time after time after time, there are no words. When it wasn’t breaching, it felt like something was wrong! I think I can safely say this whale breached at least 20 times. I think it was way more than that! The funny thing was if you missed getting a photo of a breach, it didn’t matter because he would do it again in a few seconds. I think this whale was either trying out for the Olympics or trying to set a record for the number of times a whale can breach within a 1/2 hour. In addition, there were times he was waving his flippers in the air. It was a magical whale watching trip. Passengers were amazed, and some asked if this was the usual. No, this was a magically day, a real adventure.

 

Another great day whale watching a full boat, come out whale watch with the best whale watching tour on the East Coast Jersey Shore Whale Watch

Here are some photos from today

Sunday 8/14/22 Species Report

3 humpback whales! 🐋

And two smaller groups of dolphins I will add even more photos Monday night , been a bi=use few weeks i have lots of photos to upload

5 whales! That is right 5 whales today a beautiful day on the ocean,very calm ocean conditions photos will be posted Sunday

Thursday 8/11/22 Species Report

2 humpback whales 🐋
30 bottlenose dolphins 🐬
1 osprey 🦅
1 common loon (out of season) 🪶
1 unidentified shearwater 🪶

We had another beautiful day at Whale WAtching Naturalist humpback whale off the Sandy Hook we were out on the ocean for about 3 1/2 hours beautiful day a little bit of a bumpy road on the way back because of winter picked up people who wanted to get sprayed by the ocean waves got it people wanna avoid it were able to avoid it.

 

we go whale watching seven days a week from Belmar two days a week from point Pleasant and two days a week from Keyport marina plenty of trips plenty of summer fun stuff behead will be running trips all the way till mid November we have the longest whale watching season on the East Coast of United States.

 

Linda writes:

Another hot day, another day to escape onto the water! With the past couple of days with whales in the Avon, Asbury Park and Long Branch area, I thought this would be an easy trip for whale watching. Well we kept heading north because we couldn’t find a whale. It was fun speaking to some of the other whale watchers as there was a family from New Mexico. First time they were ever on the Atlantic Ocean! As we approached the Highlands, saw something jump up out of the ocean. My guess is a spinner shark and others seem to agree but I really do not know. Shortly after that, it seemed the entire boat yelled “whale” as we saw it off to our right. He then decided to put on a show with frequent lunge feeds, deep dives with showing his flukes and 1 very close swim by the boat. That is when I realized how much smaller this whale (#258) was compared to others we have seen. Even got pictures of lunge feeding with the Highlands, and Verrazano Bridge serving as backgrounds. We had travel.a distance  but of course we did have to go home.

The trip home was going against the wind and swells and if you wanted to stay dry, you needed to be inside. Some brave people did stay outside but not me! On the way home, around Asbury Park, a whale was reported to have lunge fed and showed his tail. Danielle, the naturalist did get a picture so she will be able to identify that whale. We also went by hundreds of cow nosed rays ( a group of rays is called a fever). Also saw Osprey, both fishing and on their nest. Another day, another adventure!! Seeing lunge feeding is exciting!

 

What an awesome trip Friday August 5th

We had a Minke whale off the Beach just North of Asbury Park, that was our first Minke whale this year.The Minke whales are very fast movers and are about 20 feet long this was a big one.We then encountered 2 humpback whales near the beach in Deal New Jersey . We often see whales from Deal and Long Branch north towards Sandy Hook. Our 4th whale was also a humpback whale, in a little deeper water about 1 mile from shore. The group loved it we had people from the Uk and several states way outside our area. Please tell your friends about Jersey Shore Whale Watch and we hope to see you  all again one day. Bill McKim and crew Jersey SHore Whale Watch

Linda writes:

What a day! As we were approaching the last bridge before we “head off into mammal territory”, the ocean, I took a picture. It was 1:33 pm on my camera. I already had spout picture at 1:38! I didn’t bother with some of the earlier spouts. There were 2 whales, # 73 and # 94 right off of Avon!

They put on a show for us! We had multiple lunge feeds above the surface as well as slightly under the surface. Saw the tails so many times. Also exciting was that they were checking us out! They headed towards us several times, went around the back and actual surfaced right by the left bow of the boat. Got great pictures of body parts because the 2 of them were so close! Fantastic! After a while, the whales got tired of us, so we’re headed south looking for dolphins. Along the way, a few people spotted a small shark and we saw many cownosed rays.
Best comment I heard was a little girl asked her Mom, “what did the whale say” as the whale spouted. Mom’s response was “I don’t speak whale”. Sometimes, I wish I could and find out what they think about us.
Lots of room on the boat today and it was a great way to beat the heat. Had a family from Pennsylvania on the boat and the Mom just wanted to stay on the ocean because every other day she is on land. Glad I get to enjoy the Jersey Shore regularly!

More pictures later or tomorrow

Early morning Dolphin/shark watching trip. Danielle saw a shark about 3 feet down in the water but that was it for sharks. Trip was so refreshing in light of the temps reaching over 90 today. Found dolphins within 9 minutes of leaving the dock! Felt like the dolphins were giving us a tour to the Jersey Coast! Not a bad idea since we had people from Canada and Florida on the boat. The dolphins were headed north and we slowly followed and also circled around. All sides of the boat had dolphins. Some dolphins were breaching and others tail slapping while still others kind of quietly went along. The people on the boat were also quite as I think they were awed by the dolphins. Eventually we continued up the coast without them. The water was so blue, reflecting the clear sky! There were so many bunker fish all over. The pool of menhaden were huge and all over. Some bunker fish were jumping up into the air while we passed other pods with thousands of fish. Saw a few cownosed rays.Also saw an Osprey catch a late breakfast and head home with his catch. What a wonderful way to start a day!–

Afternoon Whale watching trip

We had a very active whale maybe 2 whales of the Sandy hook area

We had a very active humpback whale today Monday August 1st.This has been our best season ever, tell your friends we are booking trips from Belmar and Point Pleasant marinas 7 days a week. Jersey Shore whale Watch has over 10 trips a week right now. Grab your friends and enjoy a day on the ocea.We guarantee you will see a whale. Now till mid November

Humpback whale young at playJersey Shore Whale Watch #shorts