Whale Sightings

While the wind is quite chilly this morning, as it’s blowing from a westerly direction the wind is actually flattening the swell making conditions good for whale watching off shore at Port Stephens today.

Our morning whale watch cruise aboard the Hinchinbrook Explorer Explorer have spent time with one juvenile Humpback Whale, he appeared to be a little confused about the direction he should be traveling at this time of year. We picked the whale up near to the Fingal Island Lighthouse and watched him cruising in a northerly direction, before he circled back on his tracks and headed south towards Fingal Bay again. The juvenile was quite active showing off to our passengers by breaching numerous times, and attempted to breach but only making it half way out of the water.

There are lots of dolphins around this morning, with the first pod of the normally in shore local Bottlenose Dolphins venturing out through the headland and into the open ocean, then as we have cruised to toward home and the dock the crew have located another two pods of Port Stephens Bottlenose Dolphins.

Our passengers aboard the afternoon whale watch cruise have spent time viewing two young Humpback Whales cruising along separately, with a number of actions on display with a few breaches, head lunging and rolling in somersaults on the surface of the water. At one point some of our passengers if they were standing near to the rear of the vessel also caught a glimpse of a lone seal swimming behind us. Just before coming back into the marina at the end of the day we have also spotted a Bottlenose Dolphin.

Photography Credit: Lee Matthews