Whale Watching

By ShellJuly 5, 2015

Today was all about getting going.

After all the to-ing and fro-ing and grocery shopping and boat briefing that went on yesterday – today was all about getting up and just getting going. Which we did, at our leisure. The Captain and the First Mate studied the maps as we went, deciding the route en route, and just made the navigation rules up as we went along – except the maritime rules, we followed them to the letter. Which is more than we can say for the rest of the ~~wankers~~ boaters here in QLD. There seems to be a general rule here that if you’re in a boat, you should just do whatever hell speed you want and be damned all those smaller vessels and houseboats that get in your way. I mean, if there’s no speed limit, then fair enough go 70 knots if you want to – but have some common sense and some general thought for those people that you are passing and who just might be up for a bit of spillage as your wash rushes at them in the shape of a 5 foot wave! You think I’m exaggerating… I’ve wished a million times that I was, but I’m not. The QLD boaters here are simply wankers. Harsh? Sure, but true!

We managed to swing along with the speedsters with the frequent calls of:

“Hold on to something that’s bolted down!”

“Here comes another one”

“Car……Game off!” (ala Wayne’s World)

“Where’s Nanna?”

But once we worked our way up Tippler’s Passage to Dux Anchorage, we were fine and dandy. We navigated the shallows like pros who were using the most up to date GPS on our iPads, anchored near the shore of South Stradbroke Island and made lunch – it’s as simple as that.

When you have two teenaged boys on board a houseboat it’s important to get them onto solid ground every now then to do a bit of running around and general letting off of steam. The youngness (I’ve included myself and my older sister in this group) filled the tiny dinghy with it’s 3 horse power motor and very slowly made our way to the shore.

We beached the dinghy, found the track that would take us across the island and followed our ears, listening the crashing waves on the other side….. also the path just lead us straight there.

And it was beautiful. Sure, it’s just like another beach that you’ve probably seen before, but a chap on the river side told us that he had seen some whales not far off the beach. We got there and scanned, but concluded that they must have made their way past our lookout spot already.

The boys took to the sand dunes to burn off all their boy energy and Jodie and I headed north along the beach. It was lovely. Squeeky sand, sea shells and kangaroos – right there on the beach. In the distance we could see a glut of tall buildings which we assumed belonged to Surfer’s Paradise, but couldn’t be sure. The QLD coast line still bewilders me.

We made it back to the sand dune where we first started and sat for a quick rest before our return trek and right there between 200 and about 700 metres out from the shore (we all had a guess) were about 3 humpback whales! They were just cruising north, giving us a bit of a whale wave (a spout burst) every now and then. It was quite magical as none of us ever seen a whale that close to shore before, even though we couldn’t agree on exactly how far from shore they were.

Any guesses as to the distance?

On return from our island jaunt the tide had gone out a bit, so it took all the muscles of the nephews and myself to get the ‘beached as bro’ dinghy back into the water. Something told us that these little fellas weren’t going to be able to help us….. their arms are just way too short!

Back on the boat Col had set a couple crab pots of the back of the houseboat and on the first pull we netted two pretty big crabs. One mud crab with its bulbus claws and one juicy blue manner. On the next pull, Col and Charlie pulled the pots and came back with the biggest mud crab we’d ever seen.