Seals In New York Harbor
I've been hearing for years from my winter-kayaking friends about seals in the area, and today I finally got to see some on an excellent seal-watching cruise with American Princess Cruises out of Riis Landing, in the Rockaways (Queens). The boat heads out Rockaway Inlet out past Coney Island:
And we saw seals near tiny Swinburne Island, which was used to quarantine immigrants in the early 20th century:
It's in Lower New York Bay:
I've paddled in other places with seals, and they are curious and elusive, popping up where you least expect them. We saw probably 10 seals around Swinburne (there's at least four in this picture):
We headed off to the Verrazanno Bridge, where we saw at least two more.
It was a great day on the water (and you know it's been a long winter when temps in the lower 40's feels warm)!, and today was definitely up there on my New York area marine mammals sighting list (pictures of kayaking with dolphins off Montauk here).
The boat is nice, the crew is great, and I definitely recommend it!
And, I got to try out my new circular polarizer:
More photos here.