Humpback Whale Watching on the Gold Coast is best enjoyed from June to October each year as thousands of whales make their annual journey past the Queensland coastline. Light winds barely ruffled the waters surface this morning as we cruised along the Broadwater with a cosy cloud cover settling in making for ideal spotting conditions without the intense sunshine glare. Just ahead a lofty exhale was sighted and soon we found ourselves surrounded by three pods all on the move northbound. The furtherest pod was keeping to themselves as they calmly cruised with regularly and consistent downtimes while keeping a low profile from the other two pods. A pod of two juveniles were being closely followed by an escort pod as they were at one point within fifty meters of each other with the escort pod closing in on the distance. The juveniles didn’t want to encourage an interaction as they picked up the pace and managed to build on their reactionary distance and at that time the escort pod began to lose interest.
Slowing their pace they instead decided to join with us as we cruised together and the largest of the two appeared to be a very healthy female while her male companion was younger and carrying some decent scars. Relaxed and easy going we enjoyed their curious approaches as they would come in closer to the Whale Watch 1 throughout our time with them as they efficiently covered ground on the northbound trail all the pods were following this morning. It was great to see a few more pods moving through and the health of these individuals was once again looking great with good weight and body condition observed amongst all three pods. Photo identification images were also collected and we look forward to entering these individuals into our growing Whale Watch Queensland catalogue and also checking for any matches from our Whale Watch Western Australia catalogue. Although not common we have documented previous individuals in the past that have been observed swimming along both the east and west coast of Australia which is great for genetics and a remarkable life lived by those particular whales. Looking forward to further Humpback Whale watching on the Gold Coast with some special winter days ahead.
