Whale Watching in Sydney

Another activity that we did during the winter school holidays was whale watching. From mid-May to November, the Southern Humpback whales migrate from the cold southern waters to the warmer waters in the north to give birth and mate. We chose a perfect winter's day for the cruise with Whale Watching Cruises. The cloudless sky was a brilliant blue and the temperature hovered around 17-18C degrees. The swells were about 2-3m which was a big difference to the day before where swells were 6m high. Despite the excellent conditions, we still took some medication to avoid getting sea sick. As we cruise out of Sydney Harbour, I managed to take photos of the two famous Sydney icons.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney Opera House

We saw 4 humpback whales about 2 miles away from Sydney. The pod of whales were racing each other, and moving at a fast pace about 5 knots. A wonderful experience for all. It was amazing to be able to get so close to these large mammals. By law, the boats have to keep 100m away from the whales, but that doesn't stop the whales from swimming close to the boats.

The whales surface every 4-5 minutes for air, spouting air was they reach the surface. We were hoping for whales to breach (leap out of the air), but they didn't do any breaching. Instead, we saw many tail slaps, fluke up dives and spouting.

Whale footprint