The Humpback highway at Rottnest Island was peak hour today as dozens of Humpbacks communicated The Language of the Whales™ with spectacular surface activity as everywhere from our bow to the horizon was surrounded by breaching! Beginning our journey with a mature female, calf and escort we enjoyed our time with them before the breaching began straight ahead and the horizon filled with white water created by tonnes of weight hitting the surface. Approaching one of the pods we met the most fantastic calf who was the star of the Humpback highway as he breached and showed off his aerodynamics. He was communicating to an approaching mother and calf pod who also responded occasionally with a breach of their own until eventually both pods joined together.
Although they had now joined together it didn’t stop this young male calf from continuing his breaching, spurred on by the surface activity further ahead, to the left and to the right as we were completely surrounded by Humpback Whales. A pod of adults straight ahead seemed to capture the focus of this energetic calf and he beelined straight towards them with continuos breaching. The adults were focused amongst themselves though with big pectoral fin slapping as a female flirted with two adult males. The breaching calf, mum and male escort continued moving towards the adults and their companion pod of mother and calf decided that was a bit too much activity happening ahead so departed with a few peduncle slaps as mum taught her calf how to protect your space. A truly remarkable day out on the Humpback highway and what a privilege to spend time with our superstars!
4 thoughts on “Humpback Highway Rottnest Island”
We had the most amazing morning starting off with the friendly and helpful staff on the dock, the boat was great with so many different places to view every thing and once out there you needed all of them to keep up with all the whales doing their thing. We did not expect to see so many whales and had trouble at times keeping up with it all, the most amazing creatures of the water.The commentary during the morning was interesting and helpful, the only thing i didn’t like was that the time went so fast and we had to go back so soon.We travelled from Melbourne for this and it made our trip,we will be coming back for sure again. A big thank you to everyone for a great morning PS The photos and video on your web site was great to show everyone at home and keep for later memories
Hi Kim
Thankyou for the lovely review.
We now understand that the migration is between 40-44,000 Humpbacks, which is the largest in the world, so keeping tabs on them is an exciting and wonderful way to spend the day.
We hope to have you back onboard again soon and thank you so much for choosing our company, quite humbling when you consider the many miles travelled.
Pleasure to be of service.
Kind Regards
Whale Watch Western Australia
Thankyou so much for a very memorable morning. The knowledge and enthusiasm from the family owners really shows that they all love their job. They get excited along with the passengers while watching these magnificent creatures. The extra effort to show these mammals was truly appreciated. This tour was certainly the highlight of our adventures in Western Australia
Hi Frances, Thankyou for your lovely feedback and comments. Your quite right we do get excited every time we get this opportunity to show case and educate about our WA Whales. Probably besides the Whales the best part is the responses from our guests, we do this 7 days a week all year and we never get tired of the fantastic responses from young and old and everyone in between. Delighted you enjoyed yourself and we look forward to having you back again very soon. Kind Regards Whale Watch Western Australia.