An hour and a half from Midtown, off Jacob Riis Landing in the Rockaways, is a modern-day Ahab.
“Rockaways is the new Cape Cod for whale watching,” says Capt. Tom Paladino, steely blue eyes scanning the camera-toting crowd boarding his American Princess cruise ship. “I’ll see them before people will see them.”
“Them” refers to North Atlantic humpback whales, 52-foot-long sea creatures that summer just beyond Coney Island.
Six years ago, after Paladino spotted more and more of them on runs between Manhattan and the Rockaways, he launched his whale- and dolphin-watching enterprise: four-hour tours that set off three days a week in summer — peak humpback whale-spotting season.
While whales within subway reach of NYC suggest a scene from “Sharknado,” onboard naturalist Catherine Granton — a member of the local Gotham Whale research group — says the big mammals have long ruled these seas.
“If you look at hand-drawn maps of New York Harbor during the 1700s, whales were all over this area,” she says. “It’s just that they were hunted to the point of extinction. Now their numbers are beginning to return.”
Thanks to fishery management, reduced boat speeds and climate change, more humpback whales are making the trek each year from their warm winters off the Dominican Republic to summer here. Their populations have grown so much that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has proposed removing them from its endangered-species list.
As someone raised on Raffi’s “Baby Beluga” who’d yet to see any whales outside of SeaWorld, I had to check it out.
And some days you get on a boat and go whale watching for work #🐳 #🐋 pic.twitter.com/1fGRf9GmTy
— Haley Goldberg (@haleyslone) June 29, 2015
I wasn’t alone.
There are 150 others aboard the American Princess this particular day, including Melissa Gold of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, who dragged her friends with her on the L and A trains to celebrate her 27th birthday at sea.
“I believe everyone has a spirit animal,” she says, clutching her gold whale earrings, “and mine is the humpback whale.”
But this day, her spirit animal is feeling shy.
“A lot of whale-watching is about patience,” Capt. Paladino assures the antsy crowd as an hour elapses with nary a fin in sight. “Look for splashes.”
We look. Then some of us hit the bar for $5 beers.
Meanwhile, Gold turns green and pops ginger candies into her mouth to fight motion sickness. Others begin to nod off.
And then, nearly four hours into our cruise and on the open waters of the Atlantic, we see one.
“Eleven o’clock!” Paladino shouts over the loudspeaker.
We all sprint to the port side to see the whale’s fin and tail flick through the water.
“That’s a humpback whale!” confirms Granton, our (relieved-sounding) naturalist.
For 20 minutes, we snap away as the creature dives up and down. Not the perfect Instagram moment as advertised on the tour’s Facebook page — a breaching humpback whale perfectly aligned with the Empire State Building — but still worthy of a ’gram.
I Uber back to the city feeling wide-eyed and rejuvenated — but not quite ready to deal with the motion of the subway. True, I haven’t gotten up close and personal with a breaching “Baby Beluga.”
But four hours in the ocean air scanning the Atlantic instead of my Twitter feed seems like a whale of a good time to me.
Whale & Dolphin Watching Adventure Cruises are $45 for adults, $40 for seniors, $30 for children (kids under 5 admitted free). The boat boards at 11 a.m. and returns at approximately 4 p.m. every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at Riis Landing, Rockaway; 718-474-0555, americanprincesscruises.com.