Off The Rockaways

On Saturday, October 11, we were gifted a couple of spots on the American Princess Whale Watch cruise out of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. (Thank you,Regina!) It was an eventful trip. The sea was choppy in advance of the storm that hit that night; when I descended to the head near the end of the trip, there were many sagging in the galley, barf-bags at hand. I was a touch queasy myself but managed not to return my breakfast.

We saw two Humpbacks/Megaptera novaeangliae and bunch of bottlenose dolphins/Tursiops erebennus. One of the whales did quite a bit of chin-slapping. It was all pretty spectacular.

Gotham Whale, which partners with American Princess Cruises, has documented over 400 different Humpback whales feeding in the New York Bight. Distinctive markings on the underside of the tails are used to identify individuals. Our on-board naturalist still had about 100 photos to go through to see if she could get an ID on this one.