Hervey Bay: There Be Whales Here

Last night it rained heavily and today I woke up to a grey cloudy sky, not the greatest weather to go whale watching. I said a prayer asking for a great day and some great whales and got up out of bed and got ready to go. I was excited to be going out on the ocean whether or not I saw whales. The bus came and picked me up about 8:00 am and we made it to the harbour about 15 minutes later. I booked my tour on a ship called the Tasman Venture. It is a large catamaran. Everybody was aboard by about 8:30 and we were on our way.

It ended up being quite windy once we made it out into the open ocean so it wasn't the smoothest ride and it was cold. I sat up on the bow of the ship and just took in the view. At about 9:30 or so we spotted our first whale, whales actually. There were two out in front of us fin slapping. The captain of the ship moved us in closer to get a better look. They were both adult humpback whales. They were about 13m to 15m in length and dark grey. It was an amazing sight. After watching these two for a while the captain decided to move on see what else we could find.

A few minutes after leaving the two we spotted another whale. As we got closer the crew aboard the ship started to wave their arms and make noise. They encourage us to do the same. Apparently whales can be quite curious and lucky for us this one was. She wasn't quite an adult yet but still about 11m to 12m in length. She did have a lot of white coloring making her quite easy to see in the water. For whatever reason she really like our boat and put on a great show. She would poke her eyes out of the water and take a look, she would roll on her back and swim underneath the ship only to come up on the other side. She was such a gracefully creature. Another boat noticed all the attention the whale was giving us and moved in try to steal it away, however 2 other whales moved in and ended up taking our little white one away with them.


We headed out again and saw a few more whales from a distance but none as close as the little white one. With about a hour or so left on the tour we started to head back in. On the way back the little white whale met up with us again. However this time two other adult whales were with her and instead of taking her away all of them stayed around the boat. So now we had three whales we could watch. Pretty much where ever you were on the ship you could see a whale. We stayed here as long as we could but eventually the time came when we needed to leave, we all waved good bye and started back to the harbor. As we were heading back to the harbor I took a look back and as I did I saw two whales jump out of the water. That pretty much made my day. My prayer in the morning was definitely answered, I had a great day and we meant some great whales.