Whale watching with the Spirit of Hervey Bay

Today we got up early to prepare for whale watching with Spririt of Hervey Bay https://www.spiritofherveybay.com/  We were promptly picked by at 7:50 and whisked through another few pickups before being directed to the dock.  The boat normally takes over 200 passengers.  As we probably were the last day of whale watching, our boat was filled with less than 50.  Plenty of space to walk around, sweet.  We blasted alongside the very large Fraser Island for 1 hour.  There were still a few pods left to find which was great.  What a professional outfit, finding, describing and observing these great creatures without disturbing them  Our Nexus 5 cameras were ok but a nicer lens would have been cool.  Got home around lunch, had lunch and now some downtime and plan time before our next blast of driving tomorrow.

Big Orb spiders near our camper.

The web is golden in season

The larger spiders are the females, the tiny tiny specs near the females are the spent males.

The males are super tiny and are literally done after mating, what a life

On the boat and looking to the Marina

Looking back at Hervey Bay

Equiped with radar we see what the captain see's

Spotted a cutie

Frazer Island whizzing by, nice white sand

Many decks on the boat including a cool viewing port

Looking attentively for whales

Lot's and lots of pretty beach sand

Neat pattern coming off the bow

The radar shows water depth's between 5 and 10 meters in the areas we were

Splash our first sighting

This youngster is only 1 week old

The view from the portal is cool even though we saw no whales there

The calf jumping and mom breathing

The mom did this long tale slapping thing, the movies are way better

Every one else came to see.

There are so many on the front of this boat it was tilting forward

A crew member helps with question and an extra set of eyes for the captain

See that flat patch, it's called a foot print

Bam another pod

A curious calf is looking us over

Below

And above

Thanks Spirit of Hervey Bay

Nice purple flowers above our home

Here's some movies from today

Tail Slap aka Lobtailing http://consciousbreathadventures.com/lobtailing/

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wk5lpW9V0b5rx4gAJetw9J9_gMbPEZzH

20 Knot view underwater 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=11Fzu41psAIq8ZycfRNKJuBuphJoB-aDe

Young Calf Breaching

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1G8nSGssELrmY9VB637Z37UPNMJiwe_rz