Whale Sightings

The crew on the Hinchinbrook Explorer have described their experience during the morning whale watch cruise as the Humpback Whales ‘cuddling the boat’ The whales spent 45 minutes to an hour circling the boat. They were extremely inquisitive, eying the side of the vessel, diving under and checking out beneath the surface of the water….

The Humpback mum and their calves are traveling along the Port Stephens coastline just in time for the NSW spring school holidays. We have spotted our first mum and bub pair in the shallow water close to Fingal Island this morning. The calf spent a fair amount of time being quite active, breaching and head…

School has been in session for a Humpback Whale Calf during our morning whale watch cruise. The young half was practicing their breaching technique with mum closely watching on. At one point the calf had its body completely mid air sideways to the surface of the water. Spectacular! Photo credit: Lee Matthews Photography

Perseverance paid off with the crew and skipper aboard this morning’s Whale Watching Cruise with 3 Whales found in time before heading back to shore.  The pod consisted of 2 adults and 1 calf who was very active learning the behaviours obviously from mum and the female escort with lots of tail slapping. Photo credit:…

Today the passengers aboard the Hinchinbrook Explorer were spoilt with 1 pod consisting of 6 Whales on a heat run.  There was lots of surface time, breaches and jostling with each other close to the vessel.

Sunday mornings spent on the water at Port Stephens does not get much better than the smell of spring in the air! Luck has been on our side as the Hinchinbrook Explorer has cruised out through the headland at Shoal Bay today, we have quickly come across a pod of three Humpback Whales consisting of…

What happens when a whale notices a photographer onboard a whale watch cruise – well we can report the adult whale that the crew on the morning cruise aboard the Hinchinbrook Explorer was very happy to show off breaching time and time again, even throwing in a few powerful head lunges just for good measure….

With an overcast sky and a cooler day the crew where determined to make the most of it. Once clearing Port Stephens Heads (Mt Tomaree and Yacabba) they found a total of 6 Pods but they soon worked out that the pod included of a mum and calf, which out of all the whales in…

The passengers today aboard the Spirit of Port on the morning cruise were entertained with 2 medium to large Whales heading south bound.  They were logging which is a behaviour they exhibit when at rest and appear like “logs”.  It is lying without forward movement at the surface of the water with the dorsal fin…

What a spectacular sunny Sunday Port Stephens has turned on for our whale watch cruises today. Our morning cruise aboard MV Spirit of Port Stephens has cruised straight out through the headland to where the ocean depth is around 80-100 metres. We have located a pod of two Humpback Whales, one being considerably larger than…

The crew report from the Hinchinbrook Explorer today ‘Whales in every direction’ with several pods sighted within viewing distance of the vessel. As we come towards the end of August we are seeing a cross over in direction of which whales are traveling with the late runners still being sighted heading north bound towards Queensland,…