On Saturday, I took the ferry from Manly to the CBD (Central Business District) of Sydney with some friends and we walked to Darling Harbour. We had booked a 3 hour Whale Watching tour on a two level medium sized ship called Bubbles. It rained in the morning and the ocean was a little choppy so I took a couple sea sickness pills to ensure no uneasiness during the trip.
The eastern coast of Australia is actually what’s known as the Humpback Highway. Humpback Whales spend the summers feeding down in Antarctica on krill and then migrate 16,000 kilometers north to the Coral Sea for breeding and birthing. The young calves are unable to survive in the cold waters of the Antarctic and need to drink enough milk to build up layers of blubber before they take the long journey back down to Antarctica.
As you probably are aware, whales do not have gills and so they need to come to the surface to breathe. They can dive for up to about 20 minutes and to depths of up to around 620 meters (~2,034 feet). Online, it says the dives are normally 15-20 minutes in the winter and only about 5 minutes in the summer. However, right now it is winter here and the dives seemed to be more around 5 minutes while we were watching.
Note the red circular injury on the side of the Humpback Whale. This is very likely the mark of a Cookiecutter Shark that has bitten off a chunk of the whale.
One disturbing but fascinating thing I learned is that Humpback Whales and other large ocean creatures are often plagued by small sharks called cookie-cutter sharks. These rather ugly sharks are only about 1-2 feet long but they have very sharp teeth and jaws. When a whale passes by, they suction onto it’s side with their mouth and bite into it’s flesh. Then they twist around, biting off a circular chunk of meat and leaving a characteristic hole in their victim. In the photo above, the red circle is very likely from one of these cookie-cutter shark attacks.
I was a bit disappointed not to have been able to see on of the whale breach (which is when they leap out of the water) but it was still quite incredible just to watch them moving through the water. I think the photo above gives you some idea of the sheer size of the whales which are generally around 15 meters (~50 feet). That is about the size of a semi-trailer or 3 large SUV’s! It’s quite incredible to see creatures of this size and fills you with a sense of awe for nature.
