We had a another great trip up to Sandy Hook beach area to see a humpback whale with the skyline of New York City in the background. A great day for everyone.We have 4 trips this coming week.



















































































































































































































































































www.jerseyshorewhalewatchingtour.com
Bill McKim’s Jersey Shore Whale Watch Tour
We guarantee you will see a whale
// by bill mckim
We had a another great trip up to Sandy Hook beach area to see a humpback whale with the skyline of New York City in the background. A great day for everyone.We have 4 trips this coming week.
// by bill mckim
The normality you feel while being outdoor on a warm summer day with the ocean breeze in your face helps you forget about the Covid 19 at least for a few hours, said one passenger yesterday aboard our whale watching trip
Humpback and Dolphin Love 🐋🐬❤️
Tail flukes, pectoral fin slaps, looks like he’s waving 👋 🐋 lunge feeding, missed that picture.
A pod of dolphins smiling as they bow in and out of the water 🐬🌊 gorgeous animals, so. much. fun.
We also saw many dolphins near the whale they were swimming together for a while
// by bill mckim
Bring your good camera, it wont get wet the boat is huge, but was also bring a camera bag to protect it while we are going to the whale watching area.
As you probably know, composition is key. That being said, photographing from above does not compliment the enormous whale. Shooting from the 2nd florr crows makes the whale appear smaller that if you stay on the boats deck so we recommend staying there. Which leads us to our next point
While being at the front might seem the most sensible thing to do, it’s also the most popular spot. But you’re out there to get in some amazing frames of the whales and you will need a little space to move around. Thus our photographer Bill Mckim recommends staying at the back of the right hand side on the boat. The captain will most often need to turn the boat so he sees the whale clearly for all safety, and if it happens that he’ll choose to have the whale at the left hand side, it will only take 5 seconds to change. There are less people back here and you are away from the iphone crowd!
While I would in almost all situations recommend the Manual mode as it opens doors to photographing in new ways I wouldn’t recommend it while out there. With constant changes in light and the clouds moving around, it’s difficult to be always looking at the built-in meter to decide on aperture and shutter speed. Instead I would recommend the aperture priority mode, setting your ISO as high as you trust your camera to handle (without noise creeping in), and then setting your aperture as high as the lightning allows (A high aperture will reduce the damage if you don’t get the focus on point) . A good rule of thumb is to never let the shutter speed get lower that 1/2000s as you will risk having your photos shaky. I like to shoot at around 4000 of a second.
This tip is a one I love. Often you’ll have the luck to have birds all around, getting one in your frame for comparison to the whale is really fun to underline the size of the whales. But when the birds just don’t go into the frame you can get really creative, putting people inside the frame or even holding some things in front of the camera (if your lens is wide enough)!
This is a common question and the answer is: Just take the your camera bag! Given that you don’t carry more than 2 lenses, you can take your camera bag – with the lenses, onboard. You can keep it inside the steering house and then take it out and switch lenses later on! It’s crucial on a trip like this to have options – If you got a good zoom lens 100-400 is my go to lens for whale watching(100-400mm, 70-200mm) that would be ideal for the first minutes of the tour but then when we get closer it’s great to be able to grab a wider lens (24-105mm).
// by bill mckim
Wednesday, July 8 Whale Watching report:
We had a great socially distanced whale watching trip a great group of people some with some very nice Canon Cameras and lens!
We left Belmar Marina at 1:30 PM, and headed north towards Asbury Park fixing to go up towards Sea Bright. There we saw the first of the three whales we saw today. Captain Alan spotted the whale about a mile away from us and made his way towards it; it was great to see. Then Danielle, our naturalist, spotted the second whale about 30 minutes later a little bit to the north of us. The third whale appeared while we were watching the second whale. The second one breached a few times and the third well was doing chain lunges. Everyone on the boat was thrilled; we had a lot of returning customers, and some new faces too. It was a great day on the ocean. I got some sea spray from the warm ocean water on the way back. Speaking of, the water was beautiful and clear; you could see many dolphins everywhere we went today. Join us soon at Jersey Shore Whale Watch, great family fun. We do not overcrowd the boat, we guarantee you will see a whale and you’ll get some fresh air.
// by bill mckim
We had a small group Sunday, but we had fun and were well rewarded with many sightings. We had a hard time deciding whether to look to look left or right, we were out on one of are farther out trips near where the Sea Bass eat and live about 8 miles off shore! We saw at least four different whales, and many dolphins too, some as close to Belmar as just outside the mouth of Shark River.
Danielle our naturalist was able to confirm that the whales were around 35 feet long and were lunge feeding and it was beautiful to see. Whale breath is a unique smells you sometimes get if you are close and downwind from a blowing whale as it surfaces. The sound is loud, and the smell is… Well, lets says unique!
I promise you we do not overcrowd the boat, and we ask everyone to wear a mask while boarding until seated. We want a safe enjoyable trip for everyone. This past weekend we had little children to adults over 80 years, we are respectful of everyone during these times.
// by billmckim
We had a large film crew from Rutgers University with us on this trip they filmed our naturalist Danielle M. Brown, M.S.
@RutgersEENR
PhD student studying humpback whale foraging ecology, Lead Humpback Whale Researcher with
@gothamwhale
, stranding response/necropsy volunteer
We had many opportunities to photograph breaching whale, feeding whale, logging whale moves join us on our next trip Sunday July 28th We leave from Belmar marina at 1:30pm.
This is an amazing experience we had a few birthday parties on the boat also
// by billmckim
Brand new program starting July 2019!
The Jersey Shore Whale watch is the only whale watching boat that we know of to offer whale Checks. A whale check is our guarantee and commitment to you. If you come out on a paid trip with us and we are unable to see any whales, you will get to come back this season for free to have another opportunity to see them. While we do see whales very often (Over 96% of the time), we sometimes get unlucky, and that is why we came up with whale checks to truly guarantee our customers a chance at seeing a whale. We go even further in 2020 if we need to extend the trip to find the whale we will, only three times in 2020 did we not seen a whale!
Our trips along the coastline of New Jersey are educational and a relaxing day on the ocean. See you soon, any questions call us at 732.451.6003
// by billmckim
Some tips and tricks for our whale watch.
// by billmckim
// by billmckim
We take a very large safe boats to go whale watching some of the boats can hold as many as 80 people so you don’t have to worry about anything about safety on the boats will be a great time great trip kids of all ages love it I’m not sure I would bring an infant there’s really no reason so if you’re going to really remember anything I would probably gets in the way of the parents are in good time just having to hold the baby the whole time brother was young children are welcome to come on the whale watching trip we leave out of Belmar we do weekdays and weekends weekends
// by billmckim
I have spoken to a couple of boat captains finback whales of Belmar off the coast of belmar this week we will be going whale watching in May we won’t be going in April because the fin back whales or migrating north up towards Cape Cod Fish just kind of passing through the area so we will be waiting till the whale are feeding in the in the area is the humpback whales feeding the air is off of Sandy Hook down to Manasquan inlet and we know it’s more predictable trip we will see whales. Whale watching is a fun join is https://jerseyshorewhalewatchingtour.com Jersey Shore Whale Watch Tour
// by billmckim
I haven’t really seen too many this winter looking forward to seeing more humpback wells of the beach and Belmar should be starting next week or so then just picks up and gets really big in the fall you’ll see a lot of whales in the fall
// by billmckim
// by billmckim
Whale Watching Trip Photos June 2nd 2018
Another nice crowd of people about 25 went out with us on the Bill mcKim Jersey shore whale watching tour June 2nd 2018
Here are some photos from that Whale watching trip
// by billmckim
Bill McKim’s Jersey Shore Whale Tour June 9th 2018 photos
We sailed out of Belmar with a great group of people many, some were celebrating a birthday with wine and Champagne
We loved every minuet of the trip!