Gotham Whale had a great trip out of Montauk on the Viking Fleet with CRESLI with Artie Kopelman. CRESLI (Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island)
Will be a guest on the AP soon, stay tuned.

Conditions were very good. 80 degrees, partly cloudy with 2-4ft waves with 10knt winds. Halfway through the trip the winds dropped down, so did the seas and the clouds clear up. Great conditions, especially for Montauk.

The sightings started off before we left the dock in Lake Montauk. There were a few Grey Seals floating around right behind the Viking. Very cool to see the grey seals especially in the month of July. The Viking pushed off at 2pm and went past the Montauk light house and went looking for whales, any kind of whale. Out in Montauk they can see Finbacks and Humpbacks along with Inshore and offshore dolphins. We came upon a small pod of inshore bottlenose dolphins with a few whales in the mix off the Point. The Dolphins and the humpbacks were subsurface feeding together. The bait was down around the 25ft mark, and the depth was in the 80ft range. The crazy part with the dolphins was as we watched the dolphins feed, they grew in numbers. It went from like 40 dolphins to like 250-300 dolphins in all directions. We stayed for a bit and saw some other blows off in the distance and went to investigate. We met up with a mother and Calf. The size difference of their bodies was drastic, that baby whale was so small compared to its mom. You can see the mom was teaching the calf how to feed and to eventually survive on its own. They were doing synchronized swimming and diving, it was cute. We moved on but not too far away and came upon a very big congregation of large humpbacks. First it was 6 whales, that grew to 9 and we lost count at like 14 humpback whales. They were all around the boat, spouts everywhere you looked.

Very big whales out in Montauk! They are adult whales with some known whales documented by CRESLI to be 38 years old to 42+ years old. Compared to the Western NY Bight whales which are mostly juvenile and young adult with very few adult whales. But as time goes by, the western Bight will probably see more adults (as the juveniles get older).

Our time was up, we left the whales and went back to the dock. Had a great day out on the Viking with CRESLI and Artie K. Marine Mammal count - 14 plus Humpbacks, 250-300 Dolphins and a few Grey Seals. If you get a chance to do a day trip to Montauk to go out on the Viking with CRESLI, they go out on Wednesdays and Sundays.