Saturday Sept 3rd report

From passenger Sandy:
We saw two whales today, which is great, but the best part of whale watching is the people you meet. I got there early as usual and wasn’t even the first one there. Met some very nice people that drove from Binghamton. Another couple from Montreal was visiting friends. There were lots of people who were whale watching for the first time. Everyone was excited to see whales. We found our first whale pretty quickly just south of Long Branch. Unfortunately this whale was on a mission and didn’t want anything to do with us. It was an older whale, #16. It was first spotted in 2014. It would blow a couple times and then do a deep dive. After a while it would pop back up quite a distance away. It was impossible to get a close look at him. After 4 or 5 times seeing him from a distance we headed north in search of another whale.
We found a younger whale up near Atlantic Highlands. We were able to get closer to it and while we idled it came up near the boat a few times giving everyone a great look at it. At one point they were going to wait until it surfaced again so they could get it on the other side of the boat and give people on that side a chance to see it also. Before it did, Danielle said they just saw it on the fish finder going under the boat. Then a minute or two later it came up on the other side pretty close again. It surfaced a few times and then did a deep dive so we were able to see its tail as our final farewell. Unfortunately it was time to head back, but thankfully Captain Alan gave us an extra half hour to hang with that second whale. It was a beautiful day to be on the water.