I have never had much luck when it came to whale watching. I had been twice before; both times during different trips to California. The first time the only whale sighting happened to be on the opposite side of the boat that I was on. The second time there were no sightings. Nada. Absolutely nothing but seal watching, or should I say smelling, on that trip.
It just so happens that thousands of humpback whales travel up and down the Eastern coast of Australia as they migrate to and from Antarctica.
Last September we went whale watching off of the Gold Coast with the family to celebrate our anniversary. Jackpot! We finally saw a whale. We followed one whale the entire time as it surfaced and dove, surfaced and dove, surfaced and dove.... you get the picture. We didn't see anything but it's back and tail, but it was far better than anything I had ever seen, so to me it was quite a successful trip.
David's work schedule allows him to get every other Friday off. He tends to work many of those Fridays, but when he doesn't work we take advantage of going on day-dates to save us the $20 per hour babysitter fee. (yes, you read that correctly) So last Friday we set off to whale watch again and try our luck at seeing the majestic humpbacks.
We jumped on the "Eye-Spy" out of Redcliffe and headed out.
The waters were nice and calm in the bay where we departed, but the swells were up to 2 meters (6.5 feet) when we got out to sea. The crew was pretty adamant that we take some motion sickness medicine. I am certainly glad we did as the swells were so big it was very difficult to keep our footing. You will notice that the horizon will not be straight in most of the shots as the boat was never still.
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| The calm waters of the harbor. |
After a 90min boat ride we arrived at the humpback whale highway and almost immediately we had multiple pods sighted. Here are the first whales we came across. I got ready for the captain to start her pursuit so we could follow and watch the surface and dive, surface and dive.
But guess what? That never happened because they were more interested in us and instead of continuing on their path stayed and played for the next two hours! For the first time we saw the whales faces and fins! Sometimes they would just slowly float to the surface....
...or sometimes they would play peek-a-boo. I guess the correct term for lifting their massive heads out of the water to look around is called a "spy hop."
All I know is it was my favorite thing to watch as this massive animal performed what looked like a synchronized swimming move.
It is hard to grasp the size of these whales, especially when there is nothing nearby to compare them with. Hopefully this will help. I am taking this picture from the edge of the railing.
Here is the same photo taken from behind me by one of the crew on the boat. That is quite a large tail! Yes, that's me up front in the blue sweatshirt. (I'm still pretty amazed that we took the exact same photo.)
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| Taken by Dessray - Brisbane Whale Watching |
Many times the whales would swim straight at the boat only to dive under and pop up on the other side.
There was lots of tale waving and slapping too.
The only thing we didn't see was a breech, but since they were so active and playful we were only slightly disappointed. This splash could have very well been one, but none of us saw it as we were all looking the other way.
All in all it was our most successful whale watching venture yet and a fantastic date at sea.
