American Princess trip 11/5/17 continued - "Thar She Blows!"

Yesterday's post about what I did when I got to the whalewatching boat really, really early on November 5th ended with ""One good urban wildlife sighting down - hello Princess, let's go find more!", and that's exactly what we did! It was a wonderful day out on the water, gray and ever so slightly drizzly, as the forecast had said, but in that way that I actually find very atmospheric, with constantly shifting layers of clouds and fogs. There were so many birds, lots and lots of gannets doing their spectacular dives (everybody loves menhaden) and gulls, plus speeding strings of the winter ducks who are arriving from their northern breeding grounds around this time of year. The rain had probably kept a lot of people home, so the boat wasn't too crowded, which is nice for the passengers who do make it. There were a couple of particularly interesting things that went on on board, but I'll do another post about those. The water was so quiet inside Breezy Point, then got very bouncy as we left the shelter of the Rockaway Peninsula.

It took a while to find the whales, but I was enjoying relaxing and watching the scenery and the birds as we headed east along the coast, and, finally after a couple of hours, a pod of dolphins was spotted -- and instantly forgotten when the captain sang out "There she blows!". We spent the next hour or so (I think, I stopped looking at my watch once we found the whales) admiring five or six or maybe even seven humpbacks. Absolutely wonderful!

Here are more pictures from the day - click for a slideshow view. Looking forward to another trip this coming weekend, hope the whales come out to be admired again!

Want to learn more about these big-city cetaceans? Visit GothamWhale.org!