The Humpbacks Are Back

As the Southern Hemisphere moves through the seasons the last days of May correspond to the end of Autumn and just the same as in the Northern Hemisphere the deciduous trees have lost their leaves, the daylight hours are shorter and the high winds that stripped those leaves make some days feel quite cold. The real ltemperatures don’t drop too low and it’s not uncommon to get a day close to 20C bathed in golden sunshine under a vast blue sky.

 

And on just such days we still manage to get down to our favourite beaches. Sharky’s Beach, just south of Stanwell Park is designated ‘off leash’ for our canine companions and Archie goes mad for it. This day instead of the usual walk along the surf line we stayed around the rock pools hopping among the bedrock and shale in search of critters. On a previous trip here, we found a small octopus holed up safely in a crevice waiting for the returning tide. The kids marvelled at this and when we prised a few limpets from their rocky hold-ons and carefully placed them at arm’s length from the octopus, we watched a creeping tentacle deflty scoop up the unexpected hors d’oeuvres. Then we saw him changing colours and spiking his skin as well as those beautiful intelliegent eyes sizing us up, keeping a wary look out for danger. After all this is Australia and creatures like this are just as likely to be considered fair game as educational.

 

Now when we find rock pools we all know it’s not just crabs to be found lurking amid the rocky hideouts and so we pottered about searching for the best part of an hour. It was time to move on as Archie was all run out and starting to shiver after his dip in the Tasman and so we left the rock pools without having seen much and started for the car. Just then, as I was looking back towards the girls something caught my eye out to sea and I knew immediately that I had just seen the blow from a whale, followed instantly by a long black arching back as it dived out of sight.

 

“There’s a whale, there, out there! Quick! Let’s get up the bank!” I shouted, as I raced up the shore towards the car.

 

Poor Lottie got a minor fright when Papa forgot all his manners and decorum went out the window as he raced up the bank leaving them on the sand, but it was soon rectified when both Scarlett and Lottie were whisked up to find themselves perched on top of the Tarago roof for the best seat in the house.

 

I had not been mistaken either, as within seconds the whale was back on the surface for all of us to easily see and it wasn’t beyond our means to identify it as a humpback. Five hundred metres or so out to sea is a long way – especially if you have to swim it – but due to their size and sheer presence the distance seems not to matter nor have any diminishing effect on the experience of these sightings. And when it happens to be the first time you’ve ever seen one, as it was for Lindsay and the girls the magic really does take hold.

 

After a few minutes watching it became clear from the numbers of pectoral fins we could see that there had to be more than one whale out there performing. Two individuals were lying on the surface lazily raising a big white flipper and slapping it down on the water, side by side they could quite easily have been relatives engaging in a bit of play or members of a family group announcing their presence to other individuals. Either way it was a remarkable sight and I’m content that the actions of Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace last summer in Antarctica were wholly justified in bringing about the beginnings of a change in traditional customs.

 

And it carried on too. For we were treated to not just some pectoral slaps but very soon we had seen our first proper breach. A full power, over on the back, belly towards the sky leap from the water. Seeing that is when you only just begin to become aware of their size because the splash that follows is simply massive as tones of swimming mammal momentarily airborne smashes into the water driving on downward while the huge ‘hole’ it’s made in the sea fills up and slams shut, boiling and frothing, forming billions of bubbles that take ages to disperse. The splash from a whale breaching lasts for ages on the surface.

 

Neither was it just a breach or two we saw as minutes later one of the whales lobbed its tail flukes clear of the water and hung for a second or two on its head before letting the ever so familiar ‘huge wing’ shape glide below the chopped up surface. The humpback takes part of its scientific name from the words mega and ptera, meaning huge wing. Although whether this actually refers to its tail or its giant pectoral flippers is unclear – to me anyway! All this was quite an unexpected thrill for us as only a couple of hours previously I had mentioned  that it would be lovely to see a whale from the cliffs this year as we’d missed out last time.

 

Unwilling to let the experience go completely we strapped into the car and after a pit-stop at the kiosk on Stanwell Park beach for hot chips (because they are probably the best for miles) we headed up to the lookout on Bald Hill grabbing the last parking slot amid the sightseers and flyers. The lookout is a NSW hotspot for parasailers and hang-gliders alike who delight in the 300-odd metre elevation above the sea for its thermal updraughts and coned off beach landing zone; it’s always full. For us though the flock of camera wielding tourists and dangermen held no interest, down below us the two humpbacks had made their way along the coast on their annual journey north to Queensland’s warmer waters and were now playing right below us.  With the Swisscom binoculars lurking in the glovebox, we had a fantastic view of them now. They moved ever closer to the beach, each time having a blow, making a dive and then barreling up from the depths to burst through the surface, breaching again and again. With the height we were at it was fascinating to see them appear through the clear azure blue waters just as they broke the surface and turning on their backs each time we could easily make out the many ventral grooves running from their chins to their tummies.

 

The frustratingly scant research into the lifestyles of whales, funded and carried out by devotees and volunteers (planet Mars is far more important to land an excruciatingly expensive computerized, never to be seen again, vacuum cleaner with cameras on) has found that the different  behaviour demonstrated can be attributed to various reasons. There is the long-held belief that breaching is to rid their bodies of troublesome parasites, dislodged as the rushing water blasts away mites and persistent suckerfish. It may be a sign of territorial marking by stating their presence in a kind of “mine’s bigger than yours” way. Similarly, it may be a display trait with young males eager to show off, or it has a community importance announcing the presence of a returning pod and there is the simple but inconclusive idea that maybe it’s just for fun! Whichever you choose to believe it will certainly pay us all if, we manage to conserve their habitat and adjust the traditional ways of the nations who still believe that we should be harvesting them for commercial purposes.