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!
Our family was watching you too! We saw the spouts from the shores of Avon and we watched the 2 boats watching the whales. So fun! We also saw that day (August 4th) lots of cow nose rays surfing the rays, and a horseshoe crab on the beach. National Geographic has a great article this month on horseshoe crabs. We were wondering what other whales are seen now in NJ and NY?
We see Minke whales humpbacks of course once in a whale Fin whales and in 2019 we saw a NAR Whale off Asbury Park , a very very rare sighting on our trip in November when they travel south to warmer waters