{"id":44392,"date":"2025-07-06T22:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T22:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/44392\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T22:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T22:02:09","slug":"fourth-of-july-whale-encounter-stuns-staten-island-family-in-raritan-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/44392\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth of July whale encounter stuns Staten Island family in Raritan Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 A spontaneous boat ride on the Fourth of July turned into an unforgettable encounter for two brothers and one of their sons, when they came face-to-face with a whale swimming through Raritan Bay. <\/p>\n

The trio was enjoying the weather on the water and fishing when they noticed something unusual — a large, dark shape surfacing just beyond their boat. <\/p>\n

Within moments, it became clear that it was a whale gliding through the bay, with its massive back breaching the water for almost an hour, to an hour and a half, noted Steven Barbarino. <\/p>\n

Barbarino\u2019s son, also Steven Barbarino, was navigating the boat when it happened. <\/p>\n

\"WhaleA whale was spotted in the Raritan Bay off the shores of the Great Kills Harbor on the Fourth of July. (Courtesy of Steven Barbarino)Courtesy of Steven Barbarino<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were sailing around between the Raritan, outside Great Kills between Sandy Hook and the Verrazzano,\u201d Barbarino explained, \u201cjust sailing along, when the whale appeared and was playing for about an hour with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbarino stated that this was their first time seeing whales or anything like this in the waters off Staten Island. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t even supposed to go out there, but we figured we had an hour to spare and got lucky,\u201d said Barbarino.\u201c It was a great way to celebrate the Fourth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WhaleA whale was spotted in the Raritan Bay off the shores of the Great Kills Harbor on the Fourth of July. (Courtesy of Steven Barbarino)Courtesy of Steven Barbarino<\/p>\n

Barbarino noted that when he was back out on the water in the same location Saturday afternoon, while he didn\u2019t see the whale again, he encountered several dolphins making their appearance. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a great experience,\u201d Barbarino expressed, \u201cmy son navigating the boat and my brother [Michael]\u2019s first time on the boat, we were all excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staten Island is no stranger to whale sightings. During the summer of 2023, a whale was seen breaching within view of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge<\/a>, not far from the Staten Island coastline. <\/p>\n

And the year before that, a fisherman had a close encounter during summer 2022 <\/a>when he took his boat for a spin in the small inlet separating Brooklyn and Staten Island. <\/p>\n

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 A spontaneous boat ride on the Fourth of July turned into an unforgettable encounter…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-44392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114808549867424629","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}