Steve's Whale One - Photo of the Day

27 July 2007

Whale One - Photo of the Day (27 July 2007)

Heading out through the harbour mouth we encountered the Indo-pacific humpback dolphins or Susa dolphins again… assuming luck was on our side we headed out 15 nautical miles east of Point Cartwright and with the perfect weather conditions actually spotted the blow from an offshore bottlenose dolphin first (very small compared to a whale and usually very hard to spot!).

These dolphins lead us to a massive mixed pod of bottlenose and common dolphins and a very large flock of Australasian Gannets all feeding on a large school of bait fish. This became a hive of activity with at least a hundred dolphins coming in to inspect the boat and ride our bow wave. Common dolphins played in our wake jumping and doing lots of enthusiastic flips whilst the bottlenose played on the bow, a large pod of about 20 animals including a mother and calf (estimated to be only about 4 months old)… very cute!

From this amazing wildlife extravaganza we spotted some Humpback whales just a few hundred metres away. Moving over to get a good look at the humpbacks we traveled with the pod of two as they moved north and we intercepted the school of fish again and once again had hundreds of dolphins playing around the vessel. This continued for well over an hour and putting the hydrophone in the water over lunch we were able to listen to the clicks and whistles of the dolphins communicating with each other.

The common dolphins – a very acrobatic species – were leaping in time with each other amongst the bait fish… just like the pre-prepared ones you’d see at Sea World… only these were wild and so much cooler! ;o)

Just when we thought the day couldn’t get any better we began to follow the whales as they moved off from the dolphins and they suddenly began to breach! Right beside the boat the larger of the two animals began breaching almost on cue (making it very easy for all on board to capture the moment on camera – especially Trish our photographer!)

After a few breaches he began waving to us with his enormous pectoral fin while his mate cruised alongside coming in nice and close to the boat.

All in all we had an incredible day… all three species of dolphins commonly seen in the area were spotted, the Australasian Gannet, flying fish (very cool) as well as the Humpback whales breaching right beside the boat… magical!

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend and I hope to bring more good news then too!

Sara ;o)