Whale watching off New England coast?

RM_guy

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Damn Yankees
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Has anybody done this recently or know of any good places to contact about it? My wife and I have wanted to see the whales in the wild and plan on doing it this summer. I’ve heard it’s pretty impressive. :)
 

Trail Boss

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Jul 25, 2000
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Sorry I can't give you any recent information, but I went out on a whale watch about 18 years ago. I would recommend taking the trip.

I was on a large 2 deck boat with something like 40 to 50 people.
We went to somewhere near Plymouth Mass to get the boat and headed out past the Cape to somewhere called the Stellwaggen Bank (sp)
We lucked out and the sea was extremely calm that day.
It was impressive. We had humpback whales bigger than the boat tagging along with us for quite some time. I went a little crazy and took well over 130 pictures. I have lots of pictures of whale Flukes, fins, blowholes, eyes and quite a few porpoises that were jumping around too....it was pretty cool when the huge humpbacks would roll up and take a look at us with that big eye and then roll back in and spray us with some water…..The captain of the boat said that we were pretty lucky that day, usually they see a few whales off in the distance, but for some reason they were real curious about our boat and swam around us for quite some time.
 

NeedSpeed

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Feb 16, 2001
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I've been on a few in the past, Ususally go from Cape Cod, which isn't too far from Plymouth. Always have Good Luck, the whales usually come right up to the boat and hang around for awhile...Definitely worth the experience..
J
 

Jaybird

Apprentice Goon
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I used to partake in this sport years ago down at the local pubs.
Trust me...it can be a very dangerous sport to partake in, as well as quite time consuming. I found that once one has ingested enough liquid vitimins (read: Papst Blue Ribbon) that the watching soon turns into trying to capture one of the beasts.
I was successful a couple of times, but it was far from impressive the next day. Matter of fact, once I had to spend alot of hard earned cash to keep a friend quiet after he decided to visit me one morning after a successful hunt.

It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it! :(
 

gospeedracer

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Feb 8, 2000
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What are you talking about? I've never even been to the New England coast! :confused:

I can't attest to the whale watching on the east coast (would like to check it out sometime) but I've gone several times here off of the Channel Islands. I took TTRGuy shortly after he moved out here. It is touch and go what kind of encounters you will get. We saw some Blue whales in addition to the regular Humpbacks but didn't get a chance to get very close.

This last year was particulaly exciting since a pod of Orcas (killer whales) was in our area. A very uncommon occurance off our coast. They were a rogue pod and were causing some trouble with the other whales unfortunately. The captain of our boat had said that on the previous trip out a mother whale hoisted her baby up on her tummy and pressed herself up against the boat to shield the baby from the Orcas attacks. I would have been horrified if I had been on that trip, but it must have been a sight to see!
 

zio

Mr. Atlas
Jul 28, 2000
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What are you, suicidal? Save your money. Whales, like horses and elephants, are frightening creatures and you have no business going near them. There's no telling what they'll do. I've seen enough movies to know better. I think someone even wrote a book about them once... Herman "something". Must not have been very good, because I never saw it on the NY Times Best Seller List.

So please, don't do it. I'll be scared the whole time you're out on the boat. Besides, that's what Animal Planet is for. Let the professionals risk life and limb. That's why they get paid the big bucks.
 

smatta4u

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Feb 11, 2002
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rm_guy, i live about 30 minutes north of boston and have been on three whale watches in the past few years. we always went on capt. bill's whale watch based in gloucester, ma. they take you out twelve miles to a feeding ground where it's almost 100% that you will see something. they use marine
biology students on the microphone to explain everything and answer any questions. each trip was a little different but all were cool in different ways.
they have two boats and in my opinion the catamaran style boat is better.
call ahead for tickets. hope this is good info.
 

RM_guy

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Originally posted by smatta4u
rm_guy, i live about 30 minutes north of boston and have been on three whale watches in the past few years. we always went on capt. bill's whale watch based in gloucester, ma. they take you out twelve miles to a feeding ground where it's almost 100% that you will see something. they use marine
biology students on the microphone to explain everything and answer any questions. each trip was a little different but all were cool in different ways.
they have two boats and in my opinion the catamaran style boat is better.
call ahead for tickets. hope this is good info.
Thanks. Ya gotta phone number or web site??
 

smatta4u

Member
Feb 11, 2002
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yes, i have all the information at home because we won the drawing for a free trip last time we went:cool: . i will post it here for you. i am not sure about the website.
 

smatta4u

Member
Feb 11, 2002
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no problem, glad to help out. you might also find some other stuff to do out there also. the movie "the prefect storm" is based there. i am originally from your area somewhat - up by norwich. i know a couple of people from binghamton. one of them lived off of mygatt st. and his parents owned the front st. hotel.
 

RM_guy

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Damn Yankees
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Originally posted by smatta4u
... i am originally from your area somewhat - up by norwich...
It's a small world, isn't it? :) I work in Greene. Email me.
 

a454elk

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Jun 5, 2001
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Hey, the only whales I've seen was when we went on a fishing trip to Mexico. We had three blue whales follow us for a while. They were twice the length of the boat. I thought the boat was big until they pulled up along side. That had to be the most impressive thing I've seen out in the wild. Well, seeing 89r ride a 4 stroke is pretty interesting too!:p
Elk
 

slo' mo

slower than slow...
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I was once laying on the beach in Galveston to grab some rays and a whole busload of freaks from Greenpeace kept trying to shove me back in the water and trying to get me to swim. :think after we got back home I started on the BFL program.:eek:

(not true, just a friday story) although I have seen some of the French Canadians down in Sarasota and Lauderdale which might be mistaken for beached whales...:p
 

thumbs

Tony 'da Rat
Oct 16, 2000
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Unless you are Steve Irwin of the ocean I would go to Sea World. It cost about $40 and you can see other creature of the sea also.
 
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