Humpback whale spotted in island waters

Some people who were near the beach on Saturday, May 3 were taken by surprise when they saw a whale in local waters.

According to witnesses from Palm Island and Boca Grande, the whale went swimming by that morning at approximately 10 a.m., and at least two people got photos. In the news earlier that morning, a whale was also spotted to the north, off the coast near St. Petersburg.

One person who saw it, Sharon Saad, sent those photos to Mote Marine for identification.

“They confirmed it was a humpback, not a sperm whale,” Saad said. “The whale spotted off St. Pete was a humpback and probably the same whale - the media said it was a sperm whale.”

Saad explained how she and her family came to have a close look at the great beast.

“Saturday morning we were sitting on our back porch of our beach house (just south of the Palm Island Resort) drinking coffee, when we saw the big blow of water - just like a geyser!” she said. “My husband, Stewart, and I both said ‘Did you see that?’ I initially thought something really, really big had jumped, then a couple of minutes later we saw the big blow of water again and we both said ‘It’s a whale!’”

Saad called to her children to come with binoculars. Alex, 12, Trevor, 11, Andrew, 5, Mitchell, 5 and family friend, Sarah, 13, all came running.

At that time, Saad said, the whale was about 500 yards off the coast swimming south.

“We called a friend, Mark Rubio, who was down the beach on his boat looking for tarpon - he ran up in his boat and picked everyone up and we ran out to find the whale. The whale was still swimming south and kept coming up to blow — it was truly amazing.”

Saad said her daughter, Alex, wanted to jump in and swim with it. That wasn’t allowed, however.

Saad said she believed the whale to be about 45 feet long.

“We were on a 24′ center console - the whale was over twice the size of the boat,” she said. “Every time it came up to blow it was making all kinds of sounds. A couple of times it went down - we were a little nervous not knowing where it would come back up. Once it kind of turned towards the boat - so we gave her lots of room. We told the kids that they would probably never again witness a humpback whale swimming straight down the beach off of our coast. It was an incredible experience.”

Another man, Charlie Harrison, Jr. of Boca Grande, saw the whale as well.

“We were out about 1 1/2 miles and saw the whale in the Gulf,” he said.