Steve's Whale One - Photo of the Day
28 July 2007
Amazing whales again!!!
It was an absolutely gorgeous day on the water today... very little swell and no wind this morning... absolutely perfect!
We encountered a pod of two animals 15 nautical miles east of Port Cartwright (back in the whale highway) and stayed with them only long enough to realise there were more whales out just a couple of miles further so we went out to visit them as well.
This pod of whales greeted us with 4 breaches as we approached and as we turned the vessel to follow them on their northerly migration we suddenly realised we were absolutely surrounded by whales! At one time the call was “Whales at 9 o’clock, 11 o’clock, 12 and 2 o’clock as well as out behind us at 4 and two at 7 o’clock!” we were completely surrounded as all the pods were coming in near each other and it was soon after this that the action begun.
The pod we’d spotted at 2 o’clock began to breach so concentrating on them we noticed it was a pod of 3 whales (very likely mum, last year’s calf and the escort.) The large male and the smaller whale in this pod were breaching almost on cue and head lunging beside the boat and every single camera on board was guaranteed a decent shot of an airborne humpback whale! Trish’s best photos are attached (we almost couldn’t choose which ones to send you guys!)
This pod of three whales were breaching and playing around the vessel and when they got tired of the airborne antics (that took a while) they began slapping their tail flukes and then rolling around slapping their pectoral fins in unison almost like synchronised swimming. One whale in the middle laying on her back slapping both pectoral fins and another humpback either side slapping a pectoral fin each... Magic!
We did also spot a couple of turtles and more dolphins today but they were unbelievably outclassed by the humpback whales so I almost forgot to mention them!
It was great today to have a few crew from the zoo on board too... Carmen from Birds, Ryan from Reptiles and Dave from the Bird show. We were pretty excited to be able to share a little of our aquatic playground with you guys. Hope the rest of you can make it out soon too!!!
Talk to you all again tomorrowPrevious photos
