I love bringing people in on one of the best kept secrets of NYC - the fact that there is an actual real deal 95 foot Whale Watching boat in NYC! The boat is called the American Princess and it departs with Gotham Whale, its research arm from Riis Landing, Queens. I can't stress this enough...get on that boat and see this stuff for yourself. You will not be disappointed, even if you do not see a whale or a dolphin, the four hour ride alone is worth the price of fare charged! Now back to the blog...

Good day out on the American Princess with Gotham Whale on 10-08-2017.  SW winds 15-20+ mph, seas 3 to 6ft, mostly cloudy and very light drizzle here and there. What is great about where the American Princess goes out of (lower NY harbor and the entrance to the NY Bight) there is almost always a place to hide from the waves to get a Whale Watch in!

The AP had a good crowd for the day along with a large BBC camera crew. BBC are in town for a few weeks doing a big budget documentary/show on Humpback Whales of NYC due out in 2018. They were on the AP getting some shots of the NYC whale watching outfit, their passengers and crew. I was going to pass on today’s whale watch but due to certain circumstances I had to represent GW to the BBC. Not a problem, I love speaking with cameramen and photographers, it’s always easy conversation. This was surprising, they said what started them on this project and journey to shoot this show on NYC Humpbacks were my humpback whale images. One image that stood out, the Humpback Whale known as “Jerry” doing a spy hop in front of the Empire State Building. Wow, that’s a pretty cool thing to hear!

We came upon a large pod of inshore bottlenose dolphins that were especially lively and rowdy, they were going nuts! They were 300 feet or so from the boat and they were closing in on us, which is not the norm. The ocean conditions were perfect for watching dolphins riding ocean swells, on occasion there were 6ft rollers. If there was a day to witness and photograph this happening, today is the day!

Immediately into the meeting a lone large dolphin quickly swam right up to the bow of the boat and swam sideways, gave us a look and sped away. The back was dark grey, the side was colored light grey and the belly is white. I immediately screamed “OH MAN! NO WAY, FREAKING COMMON DOLPHIN!” The last we saw Common Dolphin were on 2014-10-09 almost three years to the day! Here are the photos from a few encounters from that time.

WOW this is great news, the Common Dolphin are so much fun to see, they always put on a great show and love to be around the whale watching boat! Today the commons were mixed in with the Bottlenose and they were riding the breaking waves in the channel.

As we were watching them do their thing, a humpback met up with us, a very mellow humpback. There was bait in the water so we thought we might get some lunge feedings for BBC’s show, but it didn’t happen. A few blows and a slow dive give away what whale it was with a short fluke shot, #NYC0058. A humpback that’s been in the area for like 3 weeks now.

Time was up on the Whale and dolphin watch so we left #NYC0058, the common and bottlenose dolphins, and another successful whale and dolphin watch in the shadows of NYC skyline. I can't say this enough: if you haven't been aboard the only NYC Whale watching boat, called the American Princess you need to book a trip quickly here >>> American Princess