Down Under Day 9, Whale Watching

Day nine of my trip and today I was going Whale Watching. I had bought my ticket before I left the UK with the hope of seeing some seabirds as well.
Our trip was booked for 1:15pm from circular quay in Sydney so we spent the morning around the Botanical Gardens and then had lunch in the New South Wales Art Gallery Cafe.
The boat was about half full I would guess and it didn't take long before we were out past the heads and heading out into the Tasman Sea. The months of June & July are the main migration times for Hump Backed Whales and this is the main route. The technique for finding Whales is simple, head out to sea, bob about for a bit, wait for them to surface and blow air and spray and then head in that direction. We didn't have to long to wait before the boat was speeding off after a sighting. It was quite choppy and I needed to hang on with one hand as we moved closer with my hand holding my camera in readiness. This is where I was incredibly lucky as 'our' Whale suddenly breached in front of the boat and I snapped my photo.

 This was the only time a Whale breached the surface and I had captured it. Comparing my photo with the official on board photographer later and we had almost identical shots, although his was taken from the lower deck.
We now had a period of waiting for the next Whales to show and I had time to seawatch. There were Fairy Prions flying around the boat, I had had distant views of these birds up in Newcastle at the weekend but these were flying very close, but so fast and presented a challenge to get a record shot. It was a case of click away and see then see what I had. Which is how I managed to get this very poor record shot.

Fairy Prion

There were also large numbers of Australian Gannets around too including a small group which had settled on the sea in front of our boat and others that were plunging into the sea to catch fish.

Australian Gannet

My main interest though were the 'Mollymawks'. There were several Black-Browed Albatross flying around the boat and although I had seen these distantly up the coast these were the first that I had seen 'up close'.
Again I was lucky to get a few record shots of which this was the best.

Black-Browed Albatross

Our focus was now back to the Whales as another 'pod' had moved into our area. This time there were two Humpbacks swimming close together and giving more prolonged views.

Soon it was time to head back into the calmer waters of Sydney Harbour and leave these leviathans to continue their journey north. It had been a memorable afternoon, not just for the Whales, but also for me and my great views of Albatross'

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