Humpback Highway

June 16th Whale Report

We head out across King George Sound after a mate has phoned to tell me he is on the Belches and he has just had 20 plus whales swim past him. We will not get there in time so we keep out eyes peeled as we head towards Bauld Head. We find several pods of Humpbacks whales heading west as we get to the "Humpback Highway" I comment to the group of photographers laden down with at least 2 canon cameras each (No account for some peoples choice of camera) :) That the whales are being a little elusive. We tag along with several pods until Emma tells me she has spotted several whales north of us slapping their tail on the surface. We head over towards these whales and they turn and swim towards us. At one stage we have 4 whales charging around us. Giving everybody onboard a good idea of the size of these whales. Not good when you have a 150-500 mm lens on the front of your camera. I believe we had 1 cow being chased by 3 bulls. We follow these whales as they swim east. We leave them SE of the eastern end of Breaksea Island.

We turn and head towards Breaksea and find a lone humpback. As we get to about 200 metres from this whale it throws its tail from the water and the motor drives of about 10 canon cameras shoot off about 10 frames per second.

We round the eastern end of Breaksea and find some lazy New Zealand Fur seals. time to head for the marina and then a call comes over the VHF radio reporting a humpback traveling into King George Sound over Herald Reef. We look for this whale as we head for the marina but we don't see it. The canon owners are all down stairs scrolling through there pictures.