Saturday March 24^th was the start of the 2018 season on the American Princess with Gotham Whale with the first Seal and Sea Bird cruise- it was a good one.

Nice weather, mostly cloudy, highs in the mid-40s. Northwest winds around 10 mph with gusts up to 25 mph, the Lower NY Harbor was showing a 1-foot chop at times. Over all, great conditions for an inaugural run!

A small crowd onboard ready for the 2 hour round trip run to Swinburne Island in Lower NY Harbor. It’s the perfect amount of time needed to get the seal watch in. You start out of Riis Landing and motor slowly towards Swinburne Island, taking in some great sights along the way like Coney Island, the Coney Island (Norton Point) Lighthouse and the NYC Skyline, to name a few.

We arrived at Swinburne island, and from the boat you can see, amongst the broken-down buildings, the place is packed with cormorants, sea gulls and other sea birds. The seals came into frame as soon as we came around the remains of the old docking pier on Swinburne. Not many Seals are in the area today, guessing 25 Harbor and 2 Grey, but the ones that were there were feisty and very very playful! I would rather have 25 playful seals going nuts jumping and breaching than 90 seals sunning themselves doing nothing. We had a blast watching the seals play all around the boat, spent about 40 minutes with the seals and it was time for our trip back to Riis Landing.

Today was a success and a great kickoff to the 2018 season!