Shore-based volunteers just had two sightings in two days! That's one way to get a late season started! A sighting was reported off Crescent Beach on Monday around 3:15pm. By 4:45pm, the Marineland Right Whale Project verified a single right whale close to shore and headed south. This morning around 7:40am, a call from Susie Rhonemus put us on alert again and four other reports followed hers. Once again, the Marineland folks trekked to Daytona Beach Shores looking for the whale from land while the AirCam searched from above. After being elusive and staying under water a lot, the whale was finally verified and photographed from the AirCam. Both sightings were reported to local ship traffic in a timely fashion. Incidentally, photographs are being analyzed to determine if both sightings were of the same whale. If so, it swam almost 50 miles overnight. That's a swim speed of 3 mph, or about 2.6 knots. We typically see speeds of about 1 mph (less than 1 knot), so this whale's in a hurry! It's entirely possible that if this whale keeps moving south at this speed, it could be in Brevard County on Wednesday! The photo here is courtesy of the Marineland Right Whale Project and was taken off Daytona Beach Shores on Jan. 24th. For more information on the sighting, you can visit Marineland's blog at marinelandrightwhale.blogspot.com
