Now lets be honest here, this was the highlight of our trip from Cairns to Brisbane - whale watching! I was hesitant at first to do it, since I was getting paid to see them on the west coast (so why would I pay to go see them again?)...but I'm glad I did (thanks Catherine!). A solid four hours or so of whales, whales, whales: breaching, pec fin slaps, spyhopping, tail slapping... Here's Catherine with a massive whale right by our tiny catamaran - they would come right up to the boat (you're not allowed to get close to them, but if you turn off your motor they come to you out of curiosity). They would play around the boat, swim around and under it, and get us wet with their blow holes and fin slapping.
Check out this massive blow hole.
Spyhoping: are we watching the whales or are the whales watching us?
Pectoral fin slap, right by the boat.
And again...
And again.
Tail slap.
And again.
And some more tail.
Grand finale - as we were starting to motor back home the whales started breaching; the only behavior we really hadn't seen them do that day. Up in the air:
And the biggest splash down.
Chilly ride back, but definitely couldn't beat that for a great day of whale watching. Two happy campers...
This post wouldn't be complete without video though - you can't really see how very close, loud and active they were just by the photos!
They told us to wave at the whales - they get curious and come check it out. You can see us all waving in this video.
And this is one of my favorite videos of the day.
I was hoping this looked kinda like a whale, in case anyone wanted clarification on my title :)
>@@^@
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