Whale watching off Rottness Island, WA

Early last month, my work colleagues and their partners, together with Chin Fei and I went for whale watching somewhere off Rottness Island. We joined the Oceanic Cruises that departed from Fremantle boat shed in the early morning.

From left to right: Chin Fei, Me, Justine and her partner, Jonathan, Sam and her partner Danny. Missing in person: Hui Min, the photography

Having been to The World of Whales in Albany middle of this year, Chin Fei and I felt more appreciative of seeing those huge sea mammals. We have never seen a live whale before - just bones, not even a beached one (though I wouldn't want that to happen!) so we were looking forward to see some acrobatic stunts and taking good shots of them. :)

The best time to see the whales is from May to December (depending on which region of Western Australia you are at). In May, the humpback whales, southern right whales and the blue whales migrate from their kitchen, the Southern Ocean, to breeding nests in the warmer waters. Come August, the whales migrate back to their kitchen with their young ones to grow and mature. The migration route is so close to Perth that the route is labelled as the Humpback Highway. LOL.

I was also hoping to see some dolphins at the same time even though we can see that in Swan River itself. Just earlier that month, there was news of a shark attack near Bunker Bay, so I was joking with my friends how great it'll be if we could see whales, dolphins and sharks altogether on this cruise - what a worthwhile trip it would be! LOL.

Anyway, what a disappointment it was! You know when people say the more you hope, the more you'll be disappointed. I think that is just so true! Firstly, because the boat we were on wasn't equipped with any GPS to track whales, we were more of like hunting for whales in the middle of nowhere. I think the skipper of the boat was going to give up and refund us the money until a crew member spotted a blowhole out in the ocean.

Secondly, the whales that we saw were just two! What kind of migration is that?! I was expecting at least 10! And they were small. Well, obviously there are huge compared to us but I think they were still smaller than the boat we were on. Haha. And thirdly, the whales failed to amuse me! :( :P I was hoping for some stunts, you know, like the back-flips or something like that. But all they could offer was some blow hole, tail stunts and fin flaps which is more of like bidding us "Get out of my way and Goodbye". Sigh. Yeah, I know I shouldn't be demanding but my friends and I all think that the money we pay to see this was quite a waste, sad to say. Imagine paying AUD 70 and not seeing the whale's head! -.-" And to make matters worse, Sam saw a voucher on Scoopon on her phone when we were on the cruise selling whale watching tickets for HALF PRICE!! Yes, half price!! #@$#$%#

Anyway, throughout the 30 minutes or so watching the whales and praying they will do something extraordinary, all we saw were these:

So I guess after that 2.5 hours or so on the boat, with Justine feeling a bit blue, we arrive back to shore and us feeling dismayed, decided to have fish and chips for lunch. LOL.

Why oh why? All I want is to see this:

 

Oh well, it was still a good experience and I hope the next time I go watch the whales when my family comes over, they will do that signature backflip. I must pray harder that time. Tee hee hee.

I recorded a few shots too. Happy watching although I must say that in some parts of the video , it was pretty shaky (perhaps taking some anti-emetic medicine before watching the video helps?) because the ocean was pretty rough and I couldn't record properly despite holding the camera pretty stably. But I think I still did quite a good recording, though! Haha. Self-praise. :P You be the judge. :)

Til then, signing off now with the fin flap! Ciao! :)

 

p/s: Picture credits to Hui Min and Chin Fei.