No it wasn’t a whale but it was a sunfish, according to the Executive Officer of the Duxbury Harbormaster Department.
“They’re very long and thin and when they swim it looks like a dorsal fin when they come up and they swim along the surface,” says Jake Emerson
He says the three calls they received in regards to the false spotting were the first urgent reports of marine animals near the beach all summer, “Anytime we get a sighting we ensure that the public is safe so we’ll go out there and confirm it usually we’ll let people know on the beach whether it’s safe to go on the beach or to hold off until we confirm it.”
Duxbury beachgoers were told to hold off from going into the ocean waters for about twenty minutes.
Emerson estimates that about nine times out of ten when a shark or whale sighting is reported the marine animal usually turns out to be a sunfish, which is considered to be a harmless but very curious ocean creature.
(Duxbury Beach, Powder Point Bridge)