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Whale Watching in Gold Coast
On a beautiful day of 1 September we decided to take a boat tour that guarantees spotting the whales while they migrate along the coastline, first north and than back south. Gold Coast is a very pleasant location to do it as the humpback highway is just about 6-mile boat ride from the shore. You can spot many many whales that are in a group or alone, splashing water or doing the spectacular show.
Lucky Day!
On this particular trip we decided to choose the sits at the front of the vessel so we could freely watch the horizon right from the start. As the boat departs, the crew explains some safety features and also describes the whales routines and what we can expect. Every day is different though. It all happens on the whales’ rules. Sometimes you can only spot a small fin in the far distance while other times the whales approach your boat and stay close throughout the whole time. This happened exactly on that day!
There were 3 whales that kept being super close to the vessel and did 4 breaches in total! Whales tail is the strongest muscle in animal kingdom. With just few moves it can throw 40 tonns body above the water surfface. Just incredible!
A sign of aggression?
One of the whales pointed tail towards the sky and than slammed the water. It happened 3 times in a short period, which may be a sign of aggression. It might have been caused by a shark encounter or it was just a whale one-on-one fight. Who knows! It was yet spectacular to observe from the front line on the boat.
The whales kept playing and popping out of the water for 1 hour and 30minutes, diving deeper only for short periods of time. This was a spectacular show with a very close encounters.
The boat crew advised to cheer the whales as it can stimulate whales curiosity and they might stay close to the water’s surface and make some noises as well. They want to find out what’s going on and so they are more likely to stay near the boat and play around even more.
Unique tale fin!
Every whale has a unique “finger print” like feature which is its tale fin. They can be recognised by it but it’s not as simple as it may seem. We enjoyed our trip very much and would love to share some of our photographs which we took during this 7th heaven experience.
Fun Facts about the Whales!
- The Humpback Whale is the 5th largest of the great whales
- Humback Whales grow 15-18 meters long and weight about 27-45tonnes, with mature females being larger then males.
- Their life expectancy is 45-50 years.
- They migrate north from Antarctica to give birth and then come back with their calves.
- During annual migration Whales travel over 10,000km.
- During summer, southern hemisphare Humbacks feed in Antarctic waters until late Autumn. Then they begin migrating to their breeding and calving grounds in the warmer coastal waters of South Pacific.
- Groups of Whales are called Pods, averaging between 2 to 8 whales.
- A baby whale is called a calf. When born it can be 2-3 m long and weight around 1,5 tonnes.The newborn whale calf can drink up to 600litres of its mother’s milk a day and this milk is as thick as toothpaste.
- Breaching is the most spectacular behaviour of the Humpback Whale; as they lounch themselves high out of water with just a few beats of the tail.The whales are sometimes twirling as they leap and then slapping the water as they come back down. The most powerful part of whale’s anatomy is its tail.
- The Humpbacks have two blow holes, one for each lung. When it exhales it produces a 2-3 meter cloud of vapour above.
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Beauties!