Gold Coast Whale Watching – At it’s best off Coolangatta
How can you possibly beat the experience that whale watching brings you? You can experience the thrill of the majestic humpback whale as he glides through the water on his way north to breed in far north Queensland – it’s just awesome.
Thursday – 24th June – 8 whales
What a great day we had today, the boat had a fantastic energy feel this morning – everyone was happy and eager to see their first whale. One couple had been whale watching four times before on other boats (not ours) and had NEVER seen a whale on any of these trips - I congratulated them on their persistence in trying to see a whale and I promised them they would see a whale with me – and sure enough we had a great day with plenty of whale action – they were ever so thankful and have gone away very very happy with their experience.
We enjoyed one pod of three whales breaching madly around 4.5 miles out to sea, the pod split and one whale went off on his own whilst the other two stayed with us and becoming quite inquisitive at times and swimming under the boat – everyone really enjoyed that.
We then had whales coming up from the south, a fair bit of down time for those ones, so we didn’t see them too often but we had another pod breaching off Cook Island about 4 miles out to sea and that excited everyone as they breached and rolled over – great stuff.
We had a beautiful albatross circling the boat – what a beautiful sight they are, with their wings spanning upto 11 feet (3.4m) weighing in around 10kg, these sea birds are rarely seen on land and gather only to breed in large colonies on islands producing one single egg in which the parents share in the care of. Their diet consists of squid and schooling fish. An amazing bird – I really like the Albatross.
The next few days are looking great for whale watching – Migaloo has eluded us all thus far – no one has seen him for days – or was the original sighting a hoax !!! No photographic evidence just yet has surfaced – we had him last year 1st July and that is next week – keep you posted.
Friday 25th – 8 whales
We found whales by 9.25 straight off Fingal Head about 3 miles off shore, another pod of 1 whale breaching behind the first pod and they came straight to the boat – great stuff. We left this lot and headed out to sea where we could see breaching whales off in the distance, we came across a pod of 4 very active whales with constant breaching and chasing each other around the sea – after all it is mating season and we figured we had one female whale being harrassed by 3 males as her head kept on bobbing to the surface as the males surrounded her – very active today. They continued to breach even as we left them to their games and headed back into shore. On our way in just off Cooli and single whale, that we didn’t even know was there just launched itself out of the water about 200 meters in front of the boat and breached again for us – wow what a great day. We saw loads of breaching out on the horizon, had 2 dolphins in the river, no dolphins out to sea today.
Saturday 26th – 15 whales
Found the whales around 9.25 again today, one small lonely whale off Cooli and then one other larger whale was racing over to be with the first whale, once he caught up, they raced along breaching and a couple of times breached together, one lucky customer photographed this, we had spy hops in the distance and tail flukes. After around 30 minutes they went their separate ways and continued on their way. We left them and headed south out to around 52 meters of water, where we have been finding most of our pods. There we found yet again another pod of 4 whales pushing and shoving – doing the same as yesterday !!
Left this pod after a while of observation as they headed out to sea and found another pod of 2, another pod of 2 porpoising making their way to each other. Found another pod off Cooli and another pod off Cook. Had Albatross again today, only one though, don’t seem to see them in pairs out to sea.
Just a couple of shots from this week – fabulous week of whales
The boys went out for a dive and snorkel off Cook Island this afternoon and found heaps and heaps of turtles, had dolphins and whales and excellent visability
A great week of whale watching and diving
This has been Carol the “Whale Women” until next time – happy whale watching
PS: There will be no COMMERCIAL WHALING – fantastic news – the IWC has voted no to this rediculous behaviour – though allowing Greenland to slaughter 10 humpback whales every year for three years – this is a very sad announcement – we will keep fighting to save whales each and every day