A rare blue whale sighting wows whale watchers off the Cape May coast

For a group of nature watchers and researchers, a recent boat trip off the coast of Cape May turned into a creature encounter beyond their wildest dreams.

It was blue, and it was big. Really, really big. And for South Jersey, quite rare.

On Sept. 14, about 50 passengers and crew members aboard the Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center’s American Star got treated to a sighting of a blue whale, the largest animal in the world.

Growing up to about 100 feet long and sometimes weighing over 300,000 pounds, these seafaring giants are said to be as large as the biggest dinosaurs, according to marine experts. Now an endangered species, wildlife research sources say there may be as few as 5,000 to 15,000 blue whales left in the world.

“For pretty much everyone on the boat, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said staff marine biologist Melissa Laurino, who studies dolphins and whales.

That included the experts on board, too.

“We’re on the water 200 days out of the year,” the naturalist said. “We’ve been collecting data for over 10 years now, and this was our only ever sighting of a blue whale.”

Andrea Gomez, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said her agency was able to confirm the creature sighted was a blue whale. According to the NOAA, the animal was most likely part of the Western North Atlantic Stock, which ranges from the Arctic to at least the mid-latitude waters. These blue whales have been most frequently sighted in the water off eastern Canada, with most records from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, although there are some from New Jersey and points south. Other stocks of blue whales have been detected in waters around the world.

However, many of the blue whales documented have been through acoustic tracking or aerial surveys. Actually seeing one is a rare privilege.

As it turns out, the Cape May blue whale had gotten itself noticed once before — and pretty recently.

Richard Sears, director of the Mingan Island Cetacean Study, is a whale expert who catalogs blue whales through photo identification in the Western North Atlantic. Through photos taken during the September sighting, Laurino said Sears was able to identify the Cape May blue whale as the same creature documented during an aerial survey on July 3 in the Atlantic’s Hudson Canyon. Before that, the particular whale had been unknown.

“Our research will contribute to the population dynamics and distribution of blue whales in the Western North Atlantic by sharing our blue whale sighting with the Mingan Island Cetacean Study,” Laurino said.

The sighting alone seemed thrilling enough.

The American Star had set out at about 9 p.m. the night before on one of the research center’s 24-hour pelagic, or open sea, expeditions. The passengers and experts on board were getting treated to sightings of fin whales, pilot whales, several species of dolphins, a mobula ray and various seabirds.

But then at about 1 p.m. on Sept. 14, something no one could have predicted happened. The American Star was about 50 miles off the coast of Cape May.

“There was this really tall, large white spout on the horizon,” Laurino said. “Captain Matt (Remuzzi) saw it. A lot of the birders on the boat saw it. It was so big, we probably saw it from about a mile away.

“Then as we got closer to it, eventually we got to see the body. It was the largest animal by far that any of us had ever seen in our lives. It was huge.”

They didn’t immediately know it was a blue whale. Fin whales, also known as finback whales, the world’s second largest animals, are pretty big, too.

But getting a better look, they soon knew. The whale was massive. Plus it has a very small dorsal fin about three-quarters of the way down its body - another defining trait of the species, Laurino said.

And there was its color. Above the water, the animal’s skin was a mottled blue-gray. But “while it was underneath the water, we saw this really light blue, like an aquamarine color, swimming just below the surface. And that was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,” Laurino said.

It was totally different from fin or humpback whales, she said, which are darker in color and less visible under water.

“Everyone agreed it was a blue whale.”

Their encounter was better than fleeting.

The whale remained in their company a good 10 to 15 minutes, diving and resurfacing four or five times, before diving and disappearing for good.

They didn’t have time to shoot video, but they did get photographs, not to mention some very special memories.

“That’s a once in a lifetime opportunity that you never think you’d be able to see,” Laurino said. “Anytime you get on a boat, anytime you’re in nature, you never know what you’re going to see.”