Bart Bear's Blog

We stopped for a few days at Nelson Bay on our way back from the Gold Coast. It is a bit quiet there in the winter months, but one thing that is happening is the migration of Humpback whales along the coast. They come close inshore at Nelson Bay and there are lots of boats that take you out to see them. The day we went it was fairly rough. Just take a look at these photos of one of the bigger boats being bounced around in the 2 m swells. You can see some brave and determined whale-watchers out on deck, but most of the passengers were inside trying not to be sea-sick. Our boat was only half the size of that one, so we got bounced around a lot more, but small bears don't get sea-sick and the Oldies usually don't either (it takes 5 m or more to get Dad crook). Yes, we saw some whales but they were all travelling fairly fast. Mostly we only saw the puff as they came up to breathe, and the tail and fin as they dived. Most of the passengers on our boat were thrilled by that. I wonder how they would react to the magical close encounters we had a few years back on out trip to Hervey Bay (check my Dec 2006 archive for image).

Labels: boats, New South Wales, north coast, whales