Saturday May 6th 2 humpback whales near Sandy Hook

As the passengers boarded the Jersey Girl, it seemed as if almost no one had previously seen a whale in the ocean. Well that changed today ! We headed north out of the inlet with the plan to head to the Sandy Hook area. It was near perfect ocean conditions with a beautiful blue sky with scattered clouds. Saw a few dolphins as we headed north but we were serious about finding a whale. And kept on going north.Passed the Twin Lights and shortly afterwards, Danielle our naturalist, says there is a whale about 2 miles ahead. However, we never got there because right in front of us was a humpback whale just logging (resting) on the surface of the water. It would stay on the surface for awhile, then go under and come back up near by. The whale would become more active moving into the shore and back out. This whale had some unique marks and had been seen in the past couple of weeks in the Raritan and near by areas. Watched this whale and headed back south looking for other whales and dolphins. We found more dolphins and as we watched, it seemed that more and more dolphins were appearing. One dolphin swam right under the boat!

Only sad note was that we saw at least 4 balloons floating on the water surface. They could easily be swallowed by a whale . Please dispose of your helium balloons properly and never release them into the air because they may wind up in our ocean. There were 2 birthday celebrations on board today. Everyone had a great time and as one birthday celebrant said , “I will be back”! Beautiful day on the water!