Whale watching in the South West on a picture perfect day and within moments of leaving the boat harbour two big adult Humpbacks stopped us in our tracks as they surfaced alongside our vessel. They both approached and moved underneath our vessel before we all began to journey across the bay together and enjoy the perfect conditions. A familiar Humpback began to pec slap up ahead and we smiled to see our little friend from yesterday, the Humpback Whale who has survived an Orca attack. He seemed in good spirits this morning as he swam over to us and continued his pec slap ritual, no companion whale with him just yet but hopefully soon! The wound looked fine and overall he seems content and strong today, a great sign for this Humpback who is continuing to rest in Flinders Bay. Two large adults travelling in an escort pod slowed and began to take a good look at us, the male in this pod seemed concerned his female companion was approaching us and launched into some big peduncle slaps to show off his strength. Afterwards he joined the female and both whales swam around and underneath us curiously, still watching us closely this big male! Needing to show off to keep the females attention he began to roll around on the surface before turning into some inverted fluke slapping and to top off a very impressive display some world class breaching followed!
The conditions were even more sublime on the afternoon departure as the light winds completely disappeared and glassy conditions took over the bay. Our injured Humpback was still resting in the shallows and this time had another whale close by… but this wasn’t the right friend for our little champ and he moved away from the approaching Humpback. Relaxing and healing is ideal for this whale and we gently continued on our afternoon as he began to sleep in the shallows while the approaching whale lost interest and checked out the reef line instead. The bay was filled with Humpbacks everywhere we looked and it was a joy to meet and interact with many different pods. All relaxed and very approachable as they would venture over to investigate the vessel before continuing with their afternoon. Our final interaction of the day was with three boisterous Humpbacks charging around the bay as they flipped flukes upside down and pushed up onto each other in dominant displays on another special day whale watching in the South West.
