We met two new friends today and all great friends need a nickname, a big thank you to some of our youngest guests on board who chose the names for their new found friends! Meet Luis Fin Humpy (smaller male Humpback) and Sofia Shelly Sapphire (larger female Humpback) who introduced themselves to us today and did not leave our side for almost an hour. Swimming under and around our vessel it was thrilling to be able to hear them and even smell and feel their whale breathe!
They would quietly sit just below the surface and even underneath our vessel before slowly coming up to say hi to everyone making sure they deliberately exhaled in front of our guests so everyone was able to get a good covering of whale breathe. They were only in very shallow water that was 10 meters deep and we could see the sandy bottom as their pectoral fins and flukes disturbed the sand as they swam underneath us. With a few other pods around our two friends decided to use our shadow to hide under and seemed to enjoy our company almost as much as we enjoyed theirs!
After an hour of amazing memories the activity further out in the bay also caught the attention of Luis and Sofia who headed off in the direction of another pod who was being a bit surface active and showing some dominant peduncle slaps. Waving goodbye to our new friends we made our way back and enjoyed the beautiful views of the Busselton Jetty and reflected on what was a morning we will all remember forever… travel safe Luis & Sofia.
ID Log
Date – 25.9.16
Species – Humpback
Lat – 33 . 36. 19 Long – 115 . 21 . 78
Notes – Stayed & interacted with us for one hour, shallow water (10 meters)