Blue Whales in Fremantle today was a huge surprise so close to the coastline, literally 1 nautical mile from the Swan River entrance to Fremantle Harbour! After our smaller juvenile last week we were delighted, along with our guests, to discover a large adult cruising the waters across the entry channel in Gage Roads. We travelled with our new found friend out to Stragglers Reef where we let him steam off into the distance and thankfully didn’t continue south east into Cockburn Sound.
The extraordinary event was that the Blue whale appeared to arrive with an inbound tanker and as the tanker dropped anchor he continued to move along the shoreline close into Fremantle Harbour. My father said he has had many Humpback Whales swim with him and his boat as he would return from the Pearling grounds off the 80 mile beach to Fremantle and they would stay with him for days rhythmically swimming alongside our vessels Anzac Pearl and Panta Rei.
Blue Whales are much more suited to the depths on the Continental Shelf but this fellow ended up in just 10 meters of water today which was concerning, but he navigated to the west as we left him to the utter amazement of guests and crew. We thought we were done for the day but as usual Whale Watch WA never ceases to surprise when we came across two mother and calf pod’s breaching and tail slapping to give warning to the passing ferry of their location.
This is part of the Language of the Whales which instigated further breaching and tail slapping from other mum’s and calves within the vicinity and we could observe tuffs of white water around us as conversation flowed. A sensational and extraordinary moment in time to celebrate as it is not very often you get to visit with a magnificent Blue Whale followed by active Humpback mothers and calves all within a couple of hours, one mile from the cafe strip in South Terrace, Fremantle.
