6th - 13th September 2018 Whale Watching
The whales we witnessed this week have been lethargic and kept a relatively slow pace in comparison to previous week's, Thursday we didn’t have to travel for very long before we seen our first pod only a couple of minutes north of the wrecks. We are seeing more and more mothers and calves using the shallow water of the bay as a nursing and resting area.
The whales are believed to have a 10% population increase annually and it is now estimated we have over 33,000 humpback whales which is almost back up to the predicted population prior to whaling. It is believed in 1962 there was only approximately 500 of the majestic giants left in the wild but ever since Australia made the humpback whale a protected species in 1965 the numbers have been bouncing back ever since.
Dolphins have been consistently spotted playing in the crystal clear waters of the Cape, some have even been playful enough to ride the pressure wave generated from our bow! Tangalooma island resort is famous for the pod of 11 wild inshore bottlenose dolphins that visit us each evening but it is estimated up to 600 dolphins reside in Moreton Bay.
The water has been boiling with pelagic fish from Cowan Cowan all the way to Cape Moreton. We saw white water teaming with tuna and the birds were diving into these feeding frenzies, it’s clear to see there is a shift in the seasons and the smaller filter feeding bait fish that are very abundant are now being predated by our mackerel’s, tuna’s and trevally species.
Most of the whales that we are seeing now are mothers and calves and young juveniles that follow the mature whales north to be social. Some unfortunate whales bear the wounds of a cookie cutter shark bite, the cookie cutter sharks only have an upper jaw and bite by latching on and swimming in a clockwise motion leaving a clean cut out, but in relation to the whale’s size, the injuries are insignificant carrying about the same weight as a mosquito bite for us!
With whales being spotted only 20 minutes into the whale watch we now know it’s only a matter of days before we will see whales flocking adjacent to the resort, which is really exciting as we still have one month left of our whaling watching season.