I can’t believe this day. It was too good! I’m really glad mom got to experience this during her limited time in Australia. We will probably have another good whale watching one day, but it definitely will be hard to top getting mugged by seven whales and seeing countless of breaches. While the sun was out the full time, without scorching us. One of the best days ever I would dare say.
As we had such an amazing time exactly a year ago, there was no question about it, we wanted to go with Blue Bay Whale Watching Byron Bay again. Small boat with only 10 passengers at a time, nice crew, whale spotters from high ground telling where the action is, very mindful of the whales, and they seem to attract good passengers. Highly recommend!
Mom has been so excited to see the whales. We have seen them from shore, we have seen breaches and splashes and puffs, but until you have seen them up close, you don’t really understand how big these guys are and what they are actually doing.
The trip was 2.5h and we saw so many whales. The first couple ones were so curious and swam right up to us and mugged us. I had no idea what that meant initially, but after a quick googling back on the ground, it pretty much means that the whales were “people watching”. They poke their head up above the surface and just stares at us, they swim around and below the boat, splashing with their fins, sometimes breaching (these first two ones didn’t unfortunately). These two stayed with us for such a long time! Words cannot describe it!
Then we had a bit of a dry streak where we only saw a few in the distance, but not with any real action. Apparently, it’s better to go later in the season as the whales have more energy when they are going back south to Antarctica. Doesn’t really make any sense since they are starved at this point? They can apparently lose 11,000 kg in one migration season. And I would assume that on their way back down south to their feeding grounds, at this point, they should be rather skinny. Not true though, they are still massive and it is hard to comprehend that a living thing can be of that size. It’s humbling.
Next up, we ran into a group of five very curious whales. And boy, did they put on a show! They were breaching everywhere at once. They were circling us, mugging/staring at us. They were blowing rainbows at us. When we spot whales on the boat, 12 o’clock is right in front of it, 6 o’clock at the back and so fort. At one point, everyone were yelling “whales all o’clock!”. It was funny and so unreal! They were everywhere. They do like sound, and this group of passengers were very loud, all my videos are full of excited screams and calls for them to keep doing what they were doing.
The trip unfortunately ended. But Mikael and I will be back. I actually hope we can get another trip booked before this season is done. I don’t want to wait another year.
After the trip, we had lunch at The Farm and then drove up to the lighthouse (my back got damaged after yesterdays tree planting session, so it was very hard to walk), spotted COUNTLESS of whales in every single direction, stood at the most eastern point on mainland Australia, even saw a few dolphins, and then drove back home.
What an amazing day! More like this, please! ❤️
Bemm 