Thar They Blow

It's been a fun couple of days in Hervey Bay. Lack of blog yesterday due solely to problems with Internet access. Tonight, someone finally knew where to find an Internet cafe. Took me to a part of town I didn't know existed that's filled with restaurants. Will try one as soon as this is finished. Please excuse spelling errors tonight. For some reason, the spell check option isn't available tonight.

Yesterday morning, I walked over to the Whalesong to take my first whale watch here. The people were just lovely. The whales were plentiful and a couple came right up to the boat. These are humpbacks that are like those of New England and California. The main difference is that the southern hemisphere humpbacks have much more white on their underside. Many have flukes that are nearly all white. Photo identification must be tough here. I'll find out when I send some of my photos to the researchers. I saw my first humpback spy hop and got a decent photo.

The trip also gave me a chance to see some of Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island. Given that it's sand, I was surprised at how much vegetation there was. Most of the island seems to be forested. Fraser is one of the few places where there are still pure-bred dingos. In most other places, they've interbred with domestic dogs.

In the avro (afternoon), I went on a flight to see dugongs. No great pictures, but fantastic memories. There were tons of them, including at least one mother-calf pair. We also saw dolphins, a ray, and one very small shark.

Dinner was fantastic. The restaurant seemed a bit snooty at first, but when the waiter sat down next to me, I knew everything would be OK. The seafood medley included a couple of things I really wanted to try. The local scallops are fairly small, but very tasty. The real treat was having a Moreton Bay bug. This is a pretty famous crustacean similar to a crayfish. Very yummy. There was also some coral trout which was very good along with pranks and calimari. What I don't understand is why they served fries with the dish since there were potatoes in it. Dessert was a pavlova, a well known Aussie specialty. It's usually a baked meringue with a fruit filling. This one was different in that it was very soft and was a roulade rather than a mound. The berry filling was very good.

Walking back to the hotel, I met Tiger the chihuahua. A very good doggie who gave very nice nose kisses. When I went over to the wharf this morning, there were Tiger and his mommy again. We had a nice chat and I got more kisses. Tiger clearly remembered me and tried to climb into my arms. Even the Australian dogs are friendly.

Back on Whalesong this morning with very different conditions. The wind picked up overnight and what had been totally flat seas were very choppy. Unlike the day before when the boat was very crowded, it was only about half full. About half of that half was people from the Netherlands and I actually used a bit of Dutch.

The rest of the boat was Australians. One of the things I've noticed here is that the people spend a lot of time traveling within their own country. Campers (caravans here) are very popular and people take extended vacations to explore different areas. One person I talked to was covering about half the country in one trip.

I continue to be amazed by how friendly and open the people here are. For example, the photo shop has someone taking pictures of people as they board the boats. Yesterday, I waved the person off. This morning, I decided to have the picture taken since I was wearing my Red Sox World Series shirt. When I got on the boat for the afternoon, it was the same photographer and she really wanted to take my picture so nobody else would back out. When the boat docked, she gave me that picture as a gift.

The morning trip was OK, but not spectacular. With all the chop, the crew and I hoped for a lot of surface activity. We didn't get it. There were plenty of whales, though.

The afternoon boat was the Spirit of Hervey Bay. It's a bit bigger than Whalesong, definitely faster, and has underwater viewing areas. The crew was as nice as any I've met, but the naturalist had some bad information.

This was a spectacular trip. The surface activity we missed in the morning was in abundance in the afternoon. The first whale we saw was breaching. Then we had pectoral fin slapping, tail lobbing, rolling, and close approaches. There was a spy hop, but that was when I foolishly went below hoping for an underwater view. There was one aggregation of at least five whales that was clearly competitive. Although I got some great shots, there were many I missed because I was so busy enjoying the view.

Now, it's off to dinner. My departure tomorrow will be very early in order to get to Gladstone in time for my boat to Heron Island. I can't believe how little of the trip is left. It's just blown by.