White Water Wednesday

White Water Wednesday as the Humpback Whales filled our day with breach after breach and tail lob after tail lob! Beginning the morning with action as a pod of three raced across Flinders Bay and the dominant male begun to tail lob. Two other pods were following them and it was most important this male displayed his strength towards the others and try to deter their approach. Tail lobbing this enthusiastically resulted in some of the other males loosing interest and swimming away… all except for one cheeky young adult. He didn’t seem deterred at all by the tail lobbing or tail slapping that was being directed his way even after over an hour of this behaviour. The primary escort male was being very patient and did not lose his temper, instead he patiently continued with his peduncle lobs. The female seemed to have the answer though and led them both towards the reef line, once they got close enough the younger male lost interest as he began to focus on manoeuvring through the reef. The male celebrated with his girl in finally losing their “tail” and both seemed very pleased to finally just have each others company.

The afternoon began in similar fashion as yet another pod of three set off towards the reef line as the other pods close by began to get the white water Wednesday underway once again. Numerous pods travelled all around us as we watched on in excitement to see beautiful breaching and graceful pec slapping take place. One female in particular had the attention of the two boys following her as she encouraged them to follow with breach after breach, only meters away from our bow! She followed through with some flirty pec slaps and we watched on as one tonne of weight landed perfectly on the surface. She also inspired another Humpback close by to begin breaching in response and as we turned it was the most spectacular sight as the ocean turned to gold and a breaching silhouette appeared. Our afternoon completed with five big adults competing in the corner of Flinders Bay and we celebrated another magic day in Augusta!

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