Gotham...
Whale...
Gotham Whale!
Fun to find that I actually got a photo of a whale with NYC in the background! World Trade Center and other downtown buildings just to the left of the vapor cloud from the spout, Empire State Building just to the right of the whale.
This was an unexpected pleasure - I'd gone out on the American Princess a couple of weeks ago on a bit of a whim, and we had a pretty amazing day with five or six or maybe seven whales. I posted about it, and my friend Jenn saw it and said something about going sometime. Now, she's working in Calgary these days so I assumed "sometime" meant sometime in 2018, but it turned out that she was coming back to Brooklyn for Thanksgiving, so the 3 extra trips the boat was able to add at the end of November were possible. We ended up getting tickets for the last trip of the AP's whalewatching season. TQ has Sundays off for the winter, so that worked for him, and we were also joined by Jenn's husband, and also Capt. Kat, my old friend from the days when I was working on the Schooner Adirondack, who is the mutual friend through whom Jenn and I met when Kat took us for an incredible midsummer sailing trip in the Gulf of Finland a few years back.
It was a beautiful breezy day with kitesurfers having a blast at Breezy Point, tons of birds, a wide assortment of boats, a good mirage, a gorgeous sunset and one very quiet whale taking an afternoon nap. :) Interesting whale fact from the Gotham Whale naturalists on board - whales only sleep with half of their brain at a time so they can be aware of their surrounding and keep coming up for air as needed. When a whale sleeps like this it's called "logging"; sometimes they will rest on the surface; this one was mostly submerged but coming up for leisurely breaths every couple of minutes.
You just never knew where the whale was going to come up and it got pretty close to the boat, so for once I got some pretty good photos, plus of course lots from the trip out and back. Click here to visit my Flickr album from the day. I'm still a bit blown away that this is all going on out there.
It was a beautiful breezy day with kitesurfers having a blast at Breezy Point, tons of birds, a wide assortment of boats, a good mirage, a gorgeous sunset and one very quiet whale taking an afternoon nap. :) Interesting whale fact from the Gotham Whale naturalists on board - whales only sleep with half of their brain at a time so they can be aware of their surrounding and keep coming up for air as needed. When a whale sleeps like this it's called "logging"; sometimes they will rest on the surface; this one was mostly submerged but coming up for leisurely breaths every couple of minutes.
You just never knew where the whale was going to come up and it got pretty close to the boat, so for once I got some pretty good photos, plus of course lots from the trip out and back. Click here to visit my Flickr album from the day. I'm still a bit blown away that this is all going on out there.
3 comments:
Whoever would have thought? Makes me want to grab a camera and book for next year. Alas, it may be a while.
Missed you by one day! We were on the second-to-last trip and saw 3-5 whales, depending on who you ask. Dozens of northern gannets diving for fish, and just a beautiful day. Thanks for mentioning their extended season or we would have missed out.
So nice. I've never seen a whale in my life. Most all the waterpeople I know have! When is my turn?!?!
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