Flyfishing guide Brendan McCarthy was out on the water near the Rockaways this morning when he spotted something unusual: a humpback whale playing in the water. "I am a flyfishing charter boat captain and have spent a lot of time out here for the past 20 years," he told us. "Never see them this close here."
And yes, it's likely just swimming around and not really waving at McCarthy, but we want to believe it could have been waving. At one point, McCarthy noted that the whale was less than 100 yards from the beach, although he believes it was "just playing and feeding," and not in any distress. You can see two Vine videos of the whale below. A humpback whale was spotted on a cruise around Riis Landing at Breezy Point in 2011; we've contacted Riverhead Foundation to get more information about how unusual it is for whales to turn up in the Queens area. We'll update the post later with more photos and videos as well.
The last time we had a major whale spotting in NYC was not such a happy occasion: an emaciated 60-foot finback whale washed ashore at Beach 216th Street & Palmer Drive in Breezy Point the day after Christmas last year, and was declared dead a few days later. Between that incident and the poor dolphin who washed up in the Gowanus Canal, you can probably understand why we'd be concerned about this whale. Hopefully there's nothing wrong with this guy, and he was just trying to contact an alien probe.
