On Sunday Meg and I went out to Montauk (The End) of Long Island to go whale watching. We left my house at 5am in order to be sure we were at the boat an hour before it was scheduled to leave. Since we made good time we stopped at Gosman's dock before heading to Montauk harbor. When we were younger we would climb out to the very end of the jetty. I remembered it being much more of a climb when I was younger. At one point we came up to a big gap in the rocks where one of them had been dislodged and rolled to the side, I wonder if that happened during Sandy? Here is the panorama view from the end of the jetty.
When I was little my parents took Meg and me whale watching on the Viking Fleet out of Montauk so naturally that was the fleet I looked up for my trip last weekend. In an earlier blog post I mentioned the Viking ship hat which I still have. We ended up taking the Viking Starship which I believe is the same boat we went on last year when we went for a late night fishing trip. On board the ship with us were several members from Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island (CRESLI). Our announcer, Artie, was not only informative but also entertaining. I don't know if CRESLI has a partnership with other local boats but I think they made a great difference in our enjoyment of the trip. They helped spot and identify the different animals and provided information about the animals in a way that kept us engaged the entire time. Here is their url in case you want to learn more about the organization:
http://www.cresli.org/
Meg and I positioned ourselves at the back of the boat. It was a bit annoying being right over the propellers but it gave us space and a view of the back and both sides of the boat. Everyone else climbed up to the second deck or crowded in the front. Artie gave the locations of the animals based on the hands of a clock. The front of the boat was 12 o'clock the sides were 3 and 9 and the back was 6.
The first animal we saw was a loggerhead turtle, which Artie described as looking like a tire floating in the water. Here is some video I captured of the sea turtle which shows that is a pretty accurate description. I apologize for how shaky the video is I was having a hard time keeping it still.
We also saw two different humpback whales. The first had a white and black tail and the second one had an all black tail. The underside of the tail is like a finger print and is used to identify the different animals.
And finally to end the trip we had a most amazing experience. When I say the entire boat was surrounded by dolphins I am not exaggerating. Every direction I turned in there were pods of five to ten dolphins. It was breathtaking. Left, right, behind the boat, in front of the boat and under the boat everywhere you looked they were swimming and jumping in the waves.
I had been seeing reports of the trips seeing 200 and 300 dolphins and I kind of laughed at it. But now I have to honestly say it was not an exaggeration. It was also the perfect good bye to a part of NY I have always loved.
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