Humpback Whale in Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay

A humpback whale recently swam deep into Narragansett Bay, the 25-mile long estuary that makes up 10 percent of the state of Rhode Island. The whale was about 50 feet long and hung out for about 45 minutes, breaching and playing.

The harbormaster at North Kingstown, Ed Hughes, thought at first the whale was a boat, out on the water. "Then I looked again, and it was about a 50-foot whale breaching out of the water. This is not a place where you normally see a 50-foot whale," Hughes said in an article in U.S. News & World Report. "Not here."

Hughes at first thought the massive animal was trapped in netting, but then he noticed that it was playing by splashing its tail and fins into the water. "It was just having a great time," Hughes said in the article. "It was an amazing thing."

Seeing many forms of marine biology is not unusual for Hughes. Before he was harbormaster, he traveled the world as a charter boat captain. He has seen humpback whales elsewhere and has seen a dolphin and a beluga whale in the bay, he said in the article.

While humpback whales are uncommon inside the bay, they do sometimes appear there, said Department of Environmental Management spokesperson Rose Jones in the article.

Officers from that department checked on the whale and confirmed that it was headed back toward the ocean, Jones confirmed in the article.

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-Follow Catherine on Twitter @TreesWhales