Went out on the American Princess Cruises with Gotham Whale on Wednesday July 17^th. Conditions partly sunny, 85 degrees, S winds 10 kt+, becoming SW late. Seas 4 to 5 ft, occasionally to 6 ft at 8 seconds.

Tip – when going on a boat and you “might” get seasick, please for your sake, plan ahead. Get Bonine or other seasickness treatments in your system to prevent nausea, vomiting and dizziness caused by motion sickness. Seasickness is preventable read here. Artie Raslich Photography | Seasickness is preventable.

We went out of Breezy and came upon a solo humpback. It looked to be subsurface feeding. I really like this whale! It has a very special way it dives down. It takes a series of breaths and on its big dive the whale uses its pectoral fins for an extra push down. It looks like the whale is doing the breaststroke throwing water onto the back of the whale, they really get into it and its funny. Seeing whales all the time, seeing stuff like this makes it interesting. It is a weird way to dive so all photos taken were looked at in detail. Maybe the whale has a problem with an entanglement or was hurt previously and has healed? Well in all the photos I shot, there is no ropes, or anything attached to the whale that I saw. The whale has a few scars but nothing that screams out massive ship strike (many variables here). Knowing that that most whales out there have been hit by boat/s to some degree and they have been entangled before. The whale went on doing its thing and we moved on to find another whale. The second whale was actively subsurface feeding, we watched him/her for a while grabbing a few fluke shots and we called it a day.

We did see about three Thresher shark breaches; one breach was spectacular. It is very hard, you need to be very lucky to get a photo of a thresher shark breaching, it is so unpredictable. Also, Cownose Rays are starting to be seen in the area.

As always Captain Tom Paladino from the American Princess got us on the action. Try to get out on the AP and see what is out there. Great day out on the water 2 Humpbacks, 3 Threshers, a few Cownose Rays were seen.