One of the best destinations for whale tours in Perth is from Fremantle departing Sardine Jetty with Whale Watch Western Australia. It was a very hazy morning with left over smoke from controlled burn offs covering our horizon and as we looked ahead a very large sail ship was spotted approaching us through the haze. It was the Mexican Navy tall ship ARM Buque Escuela Cuauhtemoc coming into Fremantle port for a few days. The steel-hulled Buque Escuela Cuauhtemoc was launched in 1982 and has since travelled more than 750,000 nautical miles, visiting 64 countries and 212 ports over more than 40 years. The ship is currently listed to sail for Sydney at 2pm on Saturday, providing another opportunity for the public to see the ship underway and if you are in town you are able to step aboard this magnificent vessel for a tour over the next few days. It was definitely a very beautiful sight to see as this incredible tall ship cruised past us in the smokey haze looking like a scene from years past!
Waving hello to everyone onboard the Steep Point sounded twice to send her welcome to the team aboard as we continued to our sighting grounds where we had a wonderful whale tour this morning out from Fremantle as we joined up with two very energetic Humpbacks Whales. First sighted tail lobbing in the distance, shortly after our arrival we watched on as spectacular breaching and pec slapping started. These two Humpbacks Whales were calling out for a social interaction as their breaching and pec slapping continued for just over an hour straight.
A few humpbacks on the horizon were reacting in response with their own breaching and pec slapping but didn’t come to meet our pod. Twelve speedy shadows zoomed towards us as the local Bottlenose Dolphins thought they would come join in on the fun, these individuals were from our resident family pod of about thirty that live and forage around Rottnest Island and nearby coastline.
They wasted no time surging in to play with the whales, our big female humpback was chasing and twisting around these very agile dolphins trying to get as close as she could. Although it wasn’t another pod of whales it was still a social interaction our whales had seemed to be looking for all morning so were rewarded after all that effort in communicating! Wishing them well we slowly started to make our way back towards Sardine Jetty where we will get ready to enjoy further whale tours in Perth.
