Whale watching

July 15, 2009 at 04:17PM     Travel Australia Gold Coast Queesland

Two weekends ago I went whale watching off Moreton Island, about 30 minutes east of Brisbane on the coast, with a research visitor from England.

Whales migrate along the east coast of Australia throughout the winter; they spend summers eating in Antarctic waters and then head north in the winter to give birth.

We saw a few different pods of whales over the course of the afternoon. The first ones we saw were shy and ended up staying far off, but we moved a kilometre or two south and came across some more friendly whales. After they got accustomed to our presence, they starting jumping out of the water (called "breaching") for us and our cameras. Hard to photograph, as you never know when or where they're going to come up, but I managed to get a few shots.

Check out this sequence of photos of showing a single jump. If you're reading this through Facebook, click on "View original note" to view the full image.

[dscPanorama year="2009" gallery="australia" title="Whale jump"]