Wednesday morning strong winds are forecast but we leave the marina and the winds are light.
As we head out Chad Bunny, a local fisherman calls me to tell of five whales, north of Michaelmas Island, so we head in that direction.
It takes about 30 minutes to get to the islands and to start with, we can't find any blows.
We continue along the northern side of Michaelmas Island and a passenger sitting along side me on the flying-bridge spots the blows at the same time I do. We get to these whales but we can only find 2 whales not the five reported. We follow but the whales are moving with no direction.
We do see the whales lift 1/3 of their body from the water and slap their tails on the sea surface several times, but at times they are behind us, off to our port side or ahead of us several hundred metres.
The whales head out towards the eastern end of Breaksea Island and I explain to my passengers that we don't want to follow them as the wind is strengthening, making conditions very uncomfortable on the southern side of the island. We leave the whales and go visit a colony of New Zealand Fur Seals, finding a couple of Australian Sea-lions too.
We round the western end of Breaksea Island and head to Limestone Head. There has been a change in the weather and it is now raining and the wind strength I found out later, was peaking at around 44 km per hour. All the passengers have headed down stairs to take shelter and I have increased the revs so it takes us about 10 minutes to reach sheltered waters in the lee of Limestone Head.
We have seen whales breaching out deep but as I said I don't wish to put my passenger in those conditions but I don't think they have had a true whale experience yet, so hope we can find a whale in these calmer waters.
Yes we are in luck. As we head into King George Sound I look off to starboard and spot two very soft blows. We head over to find 2 small humpbacks and several dolphins and once again everyone is out side to get a good view.
The whales are not moving far I take the motors out of gear and within minutes the dolphins head towards us. I have lost sight of the whales until one surfaces right along side us, then his mate. For the next 20 minutes these whales circle the boat, at times spy-hopping, sliding back into the water and then swimming to the other side of the boat. I only have a telephoto lens on my camera and the whales are just too close, especially when one of the whales comes to the surface along side us and then rolls over on its back and lays there for several minutes.
I do love my job.
As we head out Chad Bunny, a local fisherman calls me to tell of five whales, north of Michaelmas Island, so we head in that direction.
It takes about 30 minutes to get to the islands and to start with, we can't find any blows.
We continue along the northern side of Michaelmas Island and a passenger sitting along side me on the flying-bridge spots the blows at the same time I do. We get to these whales but we can only find 2 whales not the five reported. We follow but the whales are moving with no direction.
We do see the whales lift 1/3 of their body from the water and slap their tails on the sea surface several times, but at times they are behind us, off to our port side or ahead of us several hundred metres.
The whales head out towards the eastern end of Breaksea Island and I explain to my passengers that we don't want to follow them as the wind is strengthening, making conditions very uncomfortable on the southern side of the island. We leave the whales and go visit a colony of New Zealand Fur Seals, finding a couple of Australian Sea-lions too.
We round the western end of Breaksea Island and head to Limestone Head. There has been a change in the weather and it is now raining and the wind strength I found out later, was peaking at around 44 km per hour. All the passengers have headed down stairs to take shelter and I have increased the revs so it takes us about 10 minutes to reach sheltered waters in the lee of Limestone Head.
We have seen whales breaching out deep but as I said I don't wish to put my passenger in those conditions but I don't think they have had a true whale experience yet, so hope we can find a whale in these calmer waters.
Yes we are in luck. As we head into King George Sound I look off to starboard and spot two very soft blows. We head over to find 2 small humpbacks and several dolphins and once again everyone is out side to get a good view.
The whales are not moving far I take the motors out of gear and within minutes the dolphins head towards us. I have lost sight of the whales until one surfaces right along side us, then his mate. For the next 20 minutes these whales circle the boat, at times spy-hopping, sliding back into the water and then swimming to the other side of the boat. I only have a telephoto lens on my camera and the whales are just too close, especially when one of the whales comes to the surface along side us and then rolls over on its back and lays there for several minutes.
I do love my job.
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