Today was a magnificent morning for whale watching and as we left the Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour we were greeted to breaching on the horizon! Shortly after our arrival we could see a mother and calf being followed by three male Humpbacks and once again the female decided to stay close to us for a while to break up the closeness of the males to her calf. Nearby a second pod of eight massive adults broke the surface with double Pec Slapping by two whales in the pod and one in particular was enormous in size with pectoral fins at least five meters in length and easily weighing in at one ton each, the sound was incredible.
Pectoral fin slapping is a rather impressive way of communication in the Language of the Whales and is often used by females to attract a mate or perhaps in this case she was looking for a male escort to help her travel safely back towards Antarctica. As you could imagine one thousand kilos landing on the surface creates a very big splash and even bigger noise that can easily be heard by other whales many kilometres away and even today we could hear the clap of the pec slap from the bow.
