Lightening Online

After much deliberation, we decided to go on our whale watching tour with Freedom III, a reasonably new vessel that is already fast gaining a reputation as the best in the fleet of whale watching tours on offer.

We were attracted by the extra time they offered out with the whales, the more personalised, smaller group they take and the great reviews we’d heard about the food!

And we were not disappointed.

I’ve always wanted to go whale watching so this was quite an exciting day for me.  And to think that we almost didn’t do it!  Some had told us that we’d see whales on the way to fraser island and I had wondered if it was a waste of money paying to go on a specific whale watching tour.  That was another reason for selecting this particular boat.  We figured at the very least we’d have a lovely day out on a boat with nice food.

The whale watching experience was absolutely AMAZING.  Every single one of us LOVED it.  We didn’t just see a whale or 2 in the distance like I expected.  They were swimming under the boat and many got quite close.  The hours we spent out there just sped by!!!

Different whales did different things and we were lucky enough to see a mother with her baby, along with an escort that didn’t want them getting too close to the boat.  We also had a couple of males come along and start performing in an effort to get the attention of the female.  It was all very interesting and fun to watch!

The hardest thing was trying to capture any of it on the camera.  They’re so fast and unpredictable.  We did better with the video but I can’t upload that here.

Anyway, here are a few that I did get.  They don’t really do it justice though.

Three whales swimming together.  They moved between our boat and this smaller vessel for a while.

It created quite a bit of suspense when they would dive down into the water, everyone trying to guess where they would come up again.  Sometimes they went under the boat and other times they’d come up on the same side again.  There was certainly a lot of movement from one side of the boat to the other as people spotted them and called out.

Tail Slap:

Singstar Princess looking at a nearby whale:

Whale poking it’s head out of the water.

Later in the day we had one that kept opening and closing it’s mouth at us.

The baby did a lot of showing off for us but was almost impossible to get on camera.  I have a lot of photographs of splash trying to get the baby.  It was a much paler colour than the adult whales.

I happened to be in the right place at afternoon tea to get a snapshot of the food.  It was a wonderful feed and felt like we were eating most of the day!  :)  Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, water and soft drink was also available throughout the day whenever you wanted it.

The day wasn’t limited to what spotting either.  In fact, our first visitors of the day were a couple of dolphins who swam right to the front of the boat where we were standing.

And as you can see, the ride out there and back was such a hardship!!!!  :)  When we first arrived, the owner told us about this padded area at the front of the boat which was a great area for the kids.  We could kneel up at the rail and watch as the boat cruised along or lie down and enjoy the warm sunshine.

It was a truly great day and one we’ll remember for many years to come.  Trailer Boy found a boat on a playground while we were out today and was playing “whale watching”.  He was the captain and telling all his passengers about the whales they could see.  It was SO cute (if only you could video that kind of thing without them getting self conscious).

Today we had an early start to go and see (and feed) some wild dolphins at Tin Can Bay.  I haven’t downloaded the photo’s to the computer yet but it was another unforgettable experience.

Tomorrow (Sunday) will hopefully be a quieter day.  We’ll go out to church in the morning and then expect to be joined here by some friends we made in Port Douglas (a family from Adelaide that we’ve enjoyed meeting up with a couple of times).  On Monday we’re heading over to Fraser Island together which should be great.  Farmboy can’t wait to do some 4WD-ing over there!