When Giants Surface

📸 Photo by Twiddy & Co. Guest

📍 Corolla, NC

You’re on the beach, watching the horizon blur into the Atlantic, when something unexpected breaks the surface — a whale. It’s not common, but it happens. And for one family vacationing with Twiddy & Company on the Outer Banks, it was more than rare — it was historic.

They spotted two whales: a humpback, the most familiar visitor to these waters, and something far less expected — a North Atlantic right whale, one of only 356 left in the wild. Using the Whale Alert app, they reported the sighting, leading researchers to confirm the whale’s identity: Salem, a male born in 2006 off Florida’s coast. His life is a long swim between hemispheres, from the Bay of Fundy in summer to Florida’s warmer waters in winter.

But the stakes are high. North Atlantic right whales are caught in what scientists call an Unusual Mortality Event — more are dying than being born, largely due to ship strikes and fishing net entanglements. At this rate, they could vanish within 30 to 40 years.

Each winter, humpbacks, fin whales, and right whales pass the Outer Banks, headed south. For now, it’s a rare sight. The hope is that one day it won’t be.