Fremantle Whale Watch tours are currently departing daily to observe the southbound Humpback migration with mums and calves now being observed in big numbers as the bachelor males still linger along our coastline. Today it was all about the difference that can be observed in these sighting grounds as on both our morning and afternoon departure our first interaction was with playful calves and relaxed mums before the second half of each tour welcomed the high energy of socialising and competing adults. The morning was fascinating as a mother gently pec slapped away as one of Australia’s Navy vessels moved past and she was not fazed in the slightest. A unique and wonderful sight to see and as the navy vessel held its line the mother whale could hear they were moving past and continued on with her pec slapping lesson with calf. The afternoon mums and bubs were also boisterous as they too practiced some tail lobbing, inverted fluke slapping and a few cheeky breaches for good measure.
Many pods are still rumbling through the sighting grounds and the second half of our tours today was all about the boisterous boys with competition pods and bachelor males around. The boys were incredibly dominant for this late in the season as the morning pod charged after each other as the female led them on a chase. One male was almost completely lifted out of the water by his challenger before unceremoniously being plopped back into the ocean again, he was not impressed! The afternoon had two bachelors from this mornings competition pod who had broken away and were hanging out together. On our approach they came over to check us out and hung out right underneath us for a while before surfacing right on our starboard side as they appeared to playfully wrestle. Patiently waiting for another female to travel past will keep these boys in the area for a little while yet so tomorrow should be another exciting day out on the water!
