A beautiful Sunday greeted us and our guests from Margaret River today and within moments of departure we were surrounded by Humpback Whales! The whales had ventured into the sheltered waters of Flinders Bay and were resting amongst the coastline. Even though we had over twenty whales around us we could see everyone was enjoying a Sunday morning sleep in as they peacefully rested. One individual cleverly moved behind us to avoid detection from an approaching escort pod and used our sound footprint to disappear.
Leaving our sleepy Humpbacks to continue their rest we ventured further out into Flinders Bay as we watched carefully for a change of energy. Double head lunges alerted us to this change of energy and we watched as two enormous Humpback head lunged, breached and fluke slapped towards an approaching pod. They raced towards us and as the other pod responded to the conversation by slowly moving away we could see their energy relax again. The final pods we interacted with played out in a very interesting fashion as a younger Humpback Whale began to swim underneath us as two larger adults surfaced 20 meters off our port side. The young whale quickly positioned himself to our starboard and didn’t seem to be interested in moving away from us or our sound footprint!
Our afternoon was beautifully calm and we smiled to meet our Humpback mother and calf pod from yesterday, still hanging out close to the reef line and steering clear of the three other Humpback pods moving through the area. We wished them both well and continued heading further out into the bay when a pregnant female and her male escort cruised on past. They were trying to avoid detection from the other pods just up ahead and began to swim right alongside us which appeared to work for some time. When the pod up ahead changed direction and started to move towards us the pregnant female quickly swam underneath our bow and began to move in the opposite direction, playing it very smart!
Just up ahead a young Humpback approached an escort pod when the male literally jumped into action with head lunging and breaching, an incredible display of strength. The female seemed to not mind the attention though and began to pec slap away… but the younger whale wanted nothing to do with her big male escort so quickly swam towards the opposite side of Flinders Bay! Their attention then turned to us as both whales approached and began to investigate our vessel. Escorting them towards us was a pod of beautiful Common Dolphins with their big yellow bellies lighting the way as both the Humpback’s and Common’s continued to follow us around for the rest of our beautiful afternoon.
