A calm sultry morning with soft rain clouds on the horizon greeted us as we ventured out to the humpback sighting grounds, with our first sighting spotted just moments after leaving the harbour. We had a mum with her calf and a escort male humpback high tailing it out of the resting area. Another pod was close by to them but kept a low profile not wanting this pod to join theirs.
After traveling with this pod on the go we then left them to their mission and went on towards our next sighting area. It wasn’t long before were saw small white splashes further ahead, with each slash we soon identified our suspect. It was a cheeky full of energy and probably full of some milk too humpback calf, he was tail slapping away showing us the language of the whales.
While we were watching we noticed another mother and calf next to them explaining why our little calf was tail lobbing and tail slapping so much. Tail lobbing can be more of a defensive behaviour but this little calf was throwing in a few pec slaps for good measure, just to make sure he didn’t scare his new friend away.
We then went over to another mum calf and male escort while our Australian Navy vessel cruised by in the background. Our male escort then did a huge tail lob showing off his strength to say this is his girl not ours to escort down the coast.
Our Australian Navy were out in full force as well, with one our fighter jets flying straight over our heads. It was one of our closest fly by we have had with the pilot dipping his wing to us making a great shot.
Just like our Australian Navy defends our oceans we take pride in defending our whales while we are with them showing them respect and care as they deserve our protection to look after our beautiful giants of the deep for our next generation to appreciate.
The stormy afternoon soon approached with rain clouds forming but still beautiful and calm waters as we cruised to the sighting grounds. We had a few pods just resting and migrating south before we spotted a very skinny whale. This young whale seemed to have lost a lot of weight and was very skinny with lots of whale lice. We got some ID shots to send into the department to check if this little one was one of the entangled whales earlier in the season. He seemed in good spirts though with a little tail lob as we approached so he still had some strength and energy.
We then went towards some huge white water up ahead of us, as we got closer we saw mum and calf breaching away one after the other. While scanning the area to see what may be causing this big show of surface activity we saw two adult humpbacks breaching and head lunging in towards the coast.
After a few pec slaps and big breaches from mum she soon settled but her little baby had other ideas and took it upon himself to out do mum’s breaches. Even though he is smaller he still made quite the impact with his version of “big breaching”. It was incredible to see and really suited the stormy skies and slight breeze just adding to the dramatics of this little cheeky calf.
As we made our way back into Sardine Jetty we came across another cheeky calf breaching away as two pods joined together and started to interact and socialise. The two calves started head lunging and showing off towards each other. One of them launching out into huge head lunging. The perfect way to end our busy Friday with lovely guests wonderful whales and good weather… now for the weekend of whales ahead!
