1 OCTOBER 2023
This mornings whale watching cruise on board MV Spirit had our crew and passengers super exited to be front and center of a heat run. A heat run is where male humpback whales vie for the attention of a female. They can be seen to be almost ‘chasing’ her in an ocean sprint that can go on for hours. This is a mating ritual, and the males can be spotted trying to shove each other out of the way as they speed after female humpback. In this heat run there were 4x adults continuously circling and chasing the female, body rolling & fin slapping.
During our afternoon cruise on Hinchinbrook we located two separate pods just off Boondelbah Island, each consisting of a mother, calf and escort. All three were breaching, tail lobbing and fin slapping. We then came across 3 more humpbacks off Cabbage Tree Island giving us some great surface time and coming in nice and close to the boat.
On our way home into Nelson Bay we found 6 sleepy seals on Cabbage Tree Island, and then a pod of around 10 Dolphins off Yacabba Headland.