Minke Whales 2012

  • MV Reef Connections, our home for a week. A week we planned to spend with Dwarf Minke Whales on the northern part of the Great Barrier Reef.
  • Early the first morning, we sent Julia out as whale-bait, as she had done this many times before.
  • Sure enough, the Minkes joined us right away! We quickly lined up along the rope in the water.
  • There where three of them.
  • The way it works: No chasing - we stay on the rope, waiting for the whales to come to us.
  • Which they did. Over and over again. For hours.
  • After another whale encounter in the late afternoon we watched the sun set in the water.
  • The next two days continued like this, with whales....
  • More whales...
  • An occasional bull shark or turtle...
  • And even more whales.
  • Not sure what attracted the Minke whales... but eye contact seemed to be an important factor.
  • The sunrises where as magnificent as the sunsets.
  • On the third day we had five Minkes interacting with us...
  • ...for five hours. Getting closer and closer.
  • When they eventually decided to leave...
  • ...the seas where getting a bit rough.
  • According to the resident roughness experts, it was only a 2 on a scale from 1 to 10 though...
  • Next morning the roughness had gone from 2 to 6, so we anchored protected by the reef at Dynamite Pass and did some snorkeling.
  • The corals on the reefs looked very healthy.
  • TG-1 P7020996 pn
  • This is me taking photos of the reef. Great photo by Phil Sokol ! © 2012 Phil Sokol.
  • As the winds increased, we decided to go to a sheltered bay at Lizard Island. When we got there, we were greeted by Tawny Nurse Sharks.
  • As the sun set, we checked out the beach at Watsons Bay.
  • Silver Gull at sunset.
  • I liked the gulls. Boat owners seemed to be a bit less positive in their attitudes towards them...
  • Next day we decided to walk up to Cooks Look - where Captain Cook once managed to figure out how to find a passage through the reefs.
  • View of Watsons Bay.
  • "Could we have some privacy, please..."
  • Some kind of Passiflora.
  • We found a lot of these on the island - green ant nests.
  • You can eat the green abdomen - it tastes like lemon.
  • The next day we decided to walk across the island to Mangrove Beach.
  • Driftwood at Mangrove Beach
  • Patterns in the sand at Mangrove Beach. They reminded me of cave paintings.
  • Mangroves at Mangrove Beach...
  • Snail in the mangroves.
  • Rock formations at Mangrove Beach.
  • On the way back we actually saw a lizard. It was the only one we saw on Lizard Island. Gull Island would have been a more appropriate name...
  • The sunsets always delivered.
  • With the options of returning by boat - knocking our teeth out in the rough sea - or chartering two planes, we opted to keep our teeth.
  • I ended up on the flight overloaded with luggage...
  • This bag, tied down and blocking the emergency exit, had me a bit worried....
  • But I soon forgot, watching the spectacular sunset...
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