Last Updated Sunday October 21, 2007
We stopped overnight in Hervey (pronounced Harvey) Bay on our way to Brisbane to catch our flight home.
One of the major attractions is whale watching in Hervey Bay. While waiting for the boat ride we noticed this harpoon gun displayed. Certainly wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of this thing!
We took the Whalesong out for the afternoon. They promised we would see whales. We have tried on boats off San Diego and have never seen one.
http://www.seefraserisland.com/opp/ww/whalesong/
The skipper spotted some whales on the surface by the sunlight reflecting off their skin. We were allowed to approach to within 100 meters, which is about this far. The whales can approach us, but we can't approach them.
Fortunately this was a pair of young whales who were curious enough to come over to see what we were up to. The skipper had us wave and wave to encourage the whales and attract them to us. It worked!
They came right up to the boat so we could see them up close.
They hung around for half an hour or more and played and rolled over for us.
The whales also liked to spy hop with their snout sticking straight up. The water was clear enough that they didn't have to bring their eyes above the surface to see us.
After a while the skipper reported our whales via radio to the other boats. They work together that way. This is the third boat that came to see this pair of whales. It's full of backpackers on a cheap ride. We called it the refuge boat. When they all ran to one side to see the whales it almost capsized.
We left this pair to the other boats and went looking for more whales. No luck, so we went back for one more look and the whales came right back to us.
Finally it was time to wave goodbye to the young whales and head back to port.
On the way back to port the skipper spotted this pair of mature whales. This is as close as we could get to them and they just ignored us so we couldn't get a better look.
We had a wonderful sunset as we cruised back to the dock.