A beautiful morning for the Augusta Blessing of the Fleet 2018 and the life-size Southern Right Whales greeted the arrivals to the Augusta Boat Harbour. Coffee, cake and a lot of fun was had during the morning festivities and it wasn’t long before we were off to see the whales on our morning departure. A tall blow straight ahead caught our attention and as we approached a sleepy juvenile surfaced. Seeming interested towards us he disappeared and as we waited patiently for his return a loud exhalation could be heard not far away and sure enough this cheeky whale was right underneath our bow coming up to say hello to everyone!
The afternoon was calm and as we moved out into Flinders Bay we could see Australasian Gannets scouring the oceans surface for a meal of fish. Focusing on a pod of three individuals, the approach of two Humpbacks racing towards us caught everyone by surprise and they dived below the bow only meters away. Moving quickly towards the reef to our right (and the most south western point of our coastline) they stayed close and seemed to be seeking a sound footprint to hide in.
Returning back towards the vessel they seemed to have a bit of traffic each time they moved ahead with two recreational fishing vessels moving past at speed, so back they came to hide in our sound footprint! Their third attempt to continue migrating was also interrupted by a pod of two other Humpbacks moving by and this time one of the individuals in the group decided one large peduncle slap would solve the problem. It certainly did and the second pod moved past and they were now free to continue an afternoon of travel up the coast.
