28 May 2022
Oh Port Stephens, what a stunning day you have turned on for our off shore whale watch cruise, conditions are perfect with light sea breezes and the swell just under a meter.
It has not taken too long to spot the first Humpback Whale of the day with the crew on the Hinchinbrook Explorer have locating a lone juvenile whale straight out through the headland at Shoal Bay. The skipper has lined up the vessel to travel at a distance at the same pace of the whale, following along as to swam north bound, at one point the whale has approached the vessel giving all our passengers a close view of the mighty Humpback Whale.
On our way back to the dock we could see a couple of the local Bottlenose Dolphins very close to the shoreline and rocky base of the Yaccaba Headland on the Hawks Nest side for the land formation.
During the 1:30pm whale watch cruise aboard the Hinchinbrook Explorer we have sighted two pods of whales with one whale in each near to Fingal Bay. Both whales looked to be juvenille Humpback Whales with both whales spending a good amount of time on the surface of the water.
The crew have also spotted a Minke Whale close to Fingal Island. Minke Whales are notorious of being extremely hard mammals to track, they are known to dive beneath the surface of the water and then re-appear in a completely different section of the ocean.