Always dreamed of going whale watching? Well, you might not have to travel all the way to Canada or Iceland to get a glimpse of these impressive creatures: this week, a humpback whale was spotted off the coast of the Netherlands! 

Humpback whale spotted near The Hague

Those who had decided to take a spontaneous trip to the beach in Scheveningen on January 3 were certainly in for a bit of a surprise, as an adult humpback whale had also decided it was a good day to visit the Dutch coast. 

On Tuesday afternoon, the whale was spotted around 2 kilometres off the coast of Scheveningen, before swimming off to visit Kijkduin (another beach on the outskirts of The Hague), where it was spotted later in the afternoon. 

It isn’t the first time a humpback whale sighting has been reported off the Dutch coast; in the autumn of 2018, one decided to visit Scheveningen and stuck around for a few days, before returning again in early 2019, and last year another was spotted off the coast of Zeeland. Over the past 22 years, there has been an average of one humpback while sighting reported in the North Sea every year.

Thumb: Gema Alvarez Fernandez via Shutterstock.com.