Gather round hive as I want to tell you a tale.
A tale about the deep blue sea and coming eye to eye with beasts that were passing by!
This was a day to tick off one of those bucket list experiences.
It was a brisk winters morning here on the border of NSW and Queensland in Australia.
The meeting place was Fingal boat ramp on the Tweed river and this is where we met our captain for the day.
He equipped us with 5mm wetsuits to keep us warm and buoyant in the rough Pacific Ocean. As we would be snorkeling in 100 meter plus open water.
We boarded the twin motor vessel and made our way down the river to cross the Tweed bar.
We are now in the middle of the hump back whale migration where they make there way up the east and west coast of Australia. Every year they come from the cold waters of Antarctica, to the warm waters of Queensland. Along the way, they give birth to the next generation of these huge marine creatures.
Speaking of which the first hump back whale we encountered was a baby whale breaching out of the water like a little torpedo.
Still this baby whale would have been 3 meters long and weigh over a tonne!
It was so cute to see this little one playing in the sea.
Then all of a sudden mum showed the little one how it's done.
As she launched herself out of the water and created a giant splash on re-entry.
It was so amazing to see!
We made our way past the mum and calf to find a pod of whales on their way north.. And it didn't take long to find some.
There was at least 8 whales in this pod and the Skipper floored it to get in front of them so we could jump out of the boat and swim along with them...
We put on our flippers and mask and as the pod of whales came about 100 meters from us the Skipper yelled READY??? Then GET IN THE WATER NOW!
Watching these huge whales heading straight towards us. I stopped for a brief second and thought to myself. Is this the best idea to get into the water in the path of 30+ tonne, 16 meter beast???
Then I snapped out of it....
OF COURSE THIS IS A GOOD IDEA THIS IS WHY WE ARE HERE!!!
So I slid off the side of the boat with the quickness and swam towards a pair of hump back whales. Now that was a sentence I never thought I would write haha.
As the pair approached they broke the water one last time as they were heading straight towards me. Then when they were about 20 meters from me they dove down and swam under us.
Wow what a sight to behold.
At first it didn't seem real.
I have snorkeled with a lot of marine life before, but this was something else!
To watch how graceful they move their giant bodies through the water is just breathtaking.
One push from their tale and they were gone into the deep blue.
So we all swam back towards the boat and headed off to catch up with the next pod of whales.
We did this about 5 more times and each time it was less scary and more enjoyable. You could hear screams of excitement muffled through the snorkels as the whales swam underneath us.
One whale even breached out of the water about 20 meters from us while we were snorkeling.
We ended up as north as Southport following this pod of whales so we headed back south to the Tweed river to make our way back.
This was such an amazing experience.
We had a whale of a time.
And the perfect winter snorkel if you are ever in the Gold Coast Australia.
Stay tuned as I'll make a video edit from this adventure.
Happy travels
//:# (//:# (!worldmappin -28.16860 lat 153.56251 long d3scr))