The morning before our whale watching cruise was slightly tense. I was extremely excited to go, and my husband Alex was very nervous to go. Alex hates to be sick. He is deathly afraid of vomiting. This makes him really worry about boat travel. My advice, me being the nurturing one in the relationship, was “Quit being a baby, it will be awesome!”
As we got to the dock and I could see the Whales in Paradise boat I nudged him and said “look babe, it has a double hull that will make the boat very stable even if there are a few waves.” The crew was very welcoming as we boarded. There was a photographer on hand to take a photo of each group of passengers up at the front of the boat. This photo was later available for purchase and came packaged with a great DVD of the best shots of whales over the last few seasons.
We were quickly off cruising through the canals past the homes of the rich and famous, or maybe notorious, the gold coast’s glitterati. The captain had many juicy tidbits to share as we cruised past houses each more opulent that the last. The sun was out, and the day could not have been more beautiful.
Our Captain motored us straight out to where the whales were, his knowledge of the area and what to look for to get us to them was amazing. Alex of course never had a twinge of nausea he loved every minute; I resisted saying “I told you so” but only just!
The first whale we came across was a lone whale and came up to breath, arched his back and went back under every minute or so. We got some great photos of that whale with the buildings of Surfers Paradise creating a perfect backdrop. Then we came across a pair of whales and this is where things really got interesting! The onboard marine biologist gave a running commentary and fielded every whale question we could come up with. She let us know that she thought this might be a male and a female whale. This was a lucky find indeed as male whales like to show off for the ladies. What a show! First the dive to get up speed, he would show us his tail flukes then a moment of anticipation as we thought will he? Won’t he? Then a huge breach, the whole body of the whale came out of the water and splashed back down creating a huge spray of water. It was spectacular! This went on for quite some time, obviously that was one special lady whale he was trying to impress!
We eventually had to wave goodbye to our lovely whales for the return trip and as we cruised back towards shore we could see the makings of a really great sunset on the horizon. The view as we came back through the canals was breathtaking, and everyone on the boat was taking photo after photo of the city, the lights, and the sunset over the water. When we docked Alex and I both were reluctant to leave and on our drive home had already started planning our next Whales in Paradise trip.
