August Whale Watching in Augusta is a perfect opportunity to witness two spectacular whale species, the Humpback Whale and Southern Right Whale. Transitioning from their northern migration into the southern, we often sight heavily pregnant female Humpbacks as some of the last individuals to be pushing north. On both our morning and afternoon experiences we sighted heavily pregnant female Humpbacks slowly making their way through Flinders Bay with some females travelling with a male escort. One of these pods were approaching another pod just ahead in the shallow of the bay when the male launched into a huge tail lob, clear the room everyone! The pod ahead responded by moving out of the way quickly and leaving a perfect place for these two to relax the morning away. Our female Southern Rights and their gorgeous calves were enjoying some rest themselves as one of the females gently swam around us to investigate with her young calf popping up over mums back to see what we were all about.
The afternoon was surprisingly busy with Humpbacks as this seasons August whale watching is sighting a steady increase of Humpback numbers in the bay even though late in their northern migration season. The escort pods were whisking through and a few tail lobs and pec slapping were sighted amongst the pods. Joining with us, these two enormous adults would swim right up next to the vessel to investigate as they continued towards the reef line. We met one pregnant female who was travelling through the shallows and as she approached two other pods they all moved to avoid each other. Swimming underneath and behind us worked as they all went their seperate ways and kept that reactionary distance from the other whales. The pregnant female stayed with us and even launched into an enormous spy hop/ lunge only a few meters away from our bow! She was most curious towards us and after having a good visual look continued past the bow and we wished her well for the journey ahead, unfortunately we weren’t able to become her escort for the journey north even though she seems to be encouraging us to join with her.