Family captures video of group of whales feeding off of Nantucket coast

NANTUCKET, Mass. — The Cribbins family says it began with an up-close and personal encounter with one humpback whale and continued through the duration of their eight-hour fishing charter. By the end, they believe they witnessed at least 100 whales in total.

"It was just on-going, and it kept getting better and better," said Nicole Cribbins.

It's a spectacle that the Cribbins didn't go out looking for when they headed on their annual fishing charter for the last weekend of their summer vacation in Nantucket.

But when it came to them, they couldn't get enough of it.

"On top of seeing it, the noises they make were just nothing less than spectacular," Nicole said. "There were moans and bellows.

"It was a beautiful rhythm of that happening all day."

Nicole Cribbins and her 14-year-old son Harrison spoke with Boston 25 News upon their return home to Toronto. They say they are still overwhelmed with excitement after seeing the multiple humpback whales, with seemingly synchronized movements, continually circling and surfacing for hours in a breathtaking pattern.

"I kept saying to my family and the boat captain, 'I feel like we're in a National Geographic video,'" Nicole recalled.

"It's so cool to have gotten this on film," Harrison added.

Most of the incredible images were captured by Harrison using his drone. In some clips you can see groups of five humpbacks rising up from beneath as flocks of seagulls descended from above to get their fill of the fish being thrust up.

"I'm like, 'I've got to get this up in the air to start filming,'" Harrison said.

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"Consistently what you heard over the radio by every captain was, 'wow we've seen whales before but never anything like this,'" Nicole said.

Boston 25 News showed the footage to a New England Aquarium spokesman, who calls most of it normal behavior for humpback whales – but still a spectacular sight not commonly seen by people.

That spokesman believes the whales captured in the breathtaking clip could either be a cooperative feeding group moving to a new area or a courtship group.

"Our best memory of fishing in Nantucket," Nicole surmised. "I don't think this will ever happen again."

The aquarium spokesman added that humpbacks are generally solitary but work cooperatively when in the presence of large schools of small fish.

Cox Media Group