Saturday 12 July 2014

Whales Breaching

With strong winds from Sunday to Tuesday then a tour Wednesday and Thursday strong winds Friday and the chance to cruise Saturday.

We have not got into the swing these school holidays. And the weather is not finished by the look at Mondays forecast.


We head out this morning and there is a bit of yesterdays swell still running. The wind is from the north east and not to strong but to keep things comfortable I head towards Michaelmas Island. We find several pods of dolphins by the time we have reached the Islands and had a look at the Seals.

We think we have seen a blow towards the east of Breaksea but think that we will be better suited to head to the southern side of the island to catch the whale as it heads towards Bald Head.

As we round the western end of the island, Bernie calls us up to say a whale has shown its self over towards Seal Rock. Knowing conditions are better in the sound we head in that direction.

We find 4 humpbacks heading towards the twin sisters. They are starting to become a bit active and at times we see them half out of the water. We follow as they turn and head towards Limestone Head. As we follow the pod, a pod of bottle nose dolphins joins them. This creates more mayhem with the whales as they charge around.

We follow until they reach Limestone Head and then head home. As we cross the sound we spot blows over to the north some thing to look for when we head back out for an afternoon cruise.

We arrive back in time for Jason and I to get a bit of lunch before we head out again with some more keen sailors. We keep a look out for the whales we spotted when we were on our way but don't see any thing until we are close to Limestone Head. We find a small quiet whale. Then we spot more blows out deeper. We spend some time going from one pair of whales to the next, then looking around to find more whales close by.

Problem being the whales were not staying on the surface very long and having 50 metre deep water to play in, it can make our job hard.

That is until whales start breaching around us. Ok now which ones do we go too. Whales are breaching in front of us and when they stop they lay on the surface and slap their pectoral fins on the surface of the water.


Now we have them breaching behind us too. And we are caught half way between. We find several more whales in total about 15 for the afternoon cruise.

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