Whale Watching

It was late in the season for watching whales, but it was still worth a try.  Early start, bus trip, then onto the boat .  About 1 hour into the journey we spotted our first whales - a mother and calf - swimming in the bay.  They weren't being very "playful", but we did get a good look at them every time they breathed.  Other boats weren't reporting much activity either, which apparently can be the case after a day or two of high wind & seas, so we stayed with the mother & calf.   The mother did two jumps/breaches, one of which I managed to capture on camera, and even though I've seen many documentaries on whales, it really is amazing to see how big they are in person and to watch them launch themselves out of the water.

We headed towards Fraser Island to view another pod of whales (apparently, even a single whale is called a "pod"), once again a mother an calf.

Again, not a lot of action from whales (what was I expecting? performing monkeys? For the price, maybe.) but plenty of info from the captain.  One way to tell them apart is by the various patterns on the underside of their tail (fluke).

All in all a good day was had by all, and even though the whales were a bit quiet because of the calm conditions, I would NOT have wanted to be out on the bay yesterday!!!!

Picture of mother and calf surfacing at the same time...

Here's a LINK to other photos from the whale watching day.