whale watching

John and I headed down south over the weekend for a short getaway. We wanted to go somewhere close so decided upon Margaret River. I mean, it only make sense since we are living in Perth and It's only about 3 hours drive away. Given that many people have raved about how beautiful it is we thought we'd better check it out.

So when you drive down to Margaret River, you will have to drive through Dunsbourough. There's a cruise charter in Dunsborough who does whale watching cruise so i thought it would be nice to fit that into our itinerary. I mean, why the hell not right?

I thought the whole experience was pretty good. I mean, how often do you get to see whales so upclose? I was so excited that I literally stood right at the front of the boat in the lower deck, hovering over the edge trying to keep my balance and not fall off the boat, all the while holding my camera and getting ready for the whales to submerge and do their thang. It was pretty hard work i tell ya! Given that the water was quite rough that day, and we were on the boat for almost 3 hours, I got rather, sea sick. So did John! At least he was sensible enough to retreat back to the upper deck and chill. The motion sickness got pretty bad for me that at one point I had to ditch the camera and go to the toilet to puke my guts out. It's hilarious thinking about it now. LOL!

So the boat picked us up at the pro-fisherman's boat jetty in Dunsborough. There were about 20 of us so it wasn't too bad.

John being silly

The boat that I puked on.. lol

Everyone was anxiously looking out for whales

It took us about 15 mins before we saw out first whale, and it was a humpback. :)

Humpback doing the lobe tailing

A Southern Right Whale

Then, shortly afterwards, a southern right whale came along. She was huge and she came pretty close to the boat. It was amazing! We were told that Southern Right Whale is the third largest whale and the Humpback whales are the second largest on this planet. They can grow up to 15 metres and weighing over 25 - 30 tonnes. The females tend to be bigger than the male and the whales tend to migrate to tropical grounds during winter to breed.

During the month of September whale watching commences in Geographe Bay, Dunsborough, viewing the whales as they make the southern migration to the Antarctica for summer feeding. They spent about three months in Dunsborough providing a calm and protective haven for the young.

If I must say so myself, they are pretty amazing and magnificent mammals that ever live on this earth.

If you are ever in the area around this time of the year, I do recommend you to do this cruise. But remember to take your motion sickness pills wth you! I didn't realise there is such a thing until today. Damn I should have known earlier!

(photo credit from Naturaliste Charter site)

Whale Watch with Naturaliste Charter
Operates September - December
Departs: 10.00 am daily, returns 1.00 pm (approx) from Pro-fisherman's Boat Ramp,

Geographe Bay Road, Dunsborough

08 9725 8511