Wow is how I’ll start to describe today’s whale watching cruise – As only 5 mins from the river mouth, we spotted a large whale breaching and this male continued to breach and breach and breach over the next 65 minutes. In between the breaches he would roll on his belly and slap the water with his pectoral (also called “pec” fins) fins which are the largest pec fins out of all the great whales measuring one third the total body length and up to 1 tonne, they get their scientific name Megaptera novaeangliae, which means “great fin” at one point he performed a series of massive head lunges.
After 70 minutes of non-stop breaching he finally slowed down and continued to swim south. Today was one of the most incredible displays of a fully grown humpback whale breaching and just enjoying himself in the beautiful Mooloolaba waters.