Close encounters of a cold kind!
The Humpback whale is the fifth largest whale growing up to 15 meters in length and weighing approximately 45 tonnes, they make the longest migratory journey of any mammal!
The reason why they must migrate away from Antarctica is to give birth to their young because they’re born without the fatty insulating blubber, if they were born in Antarctica they would simply freeze to death so they travel north to the warm tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef and that’s why we’re lucky enough to see them each year.
We ventured north around Cape Moreton and found protection in the islands lee, that is where we spotted a pod of three whales a mature adult and a couple of much smaller juveniles travelling close by, potentially her calves from previous years.
Although the whale season is 5 months long an individual whale takes only 2 months to travel 16,000 kilometres! They generally travel a lot slower once they have had a calf, these whales didn’t feel like slowing down but we did manage to have them surface so close we could hear their roaring exhale even on a windy !