A Whale of a Morning

Let me start by saying I’ve tried to tell this story in an abridged version, but always end up going back to the beginning, so let’s start at the beginning.

For those that have been following the blog I’ve started ocean swimming with a group of people called the Bold and Beautiful (B&B).  We meet every morning on the beach at 7AM for a 1.5K swim to Shelly beach and back.  It’s a great way to start the morning, and on occassion a group of us will do 3K's starting at 6:20. 

Well a week ago Thursday the plan was to get up and swim with the guys at 6:20, but decided instead to just go for the 7AM swim. So, I get up, start walking down the beach looking for the two guys, and see them swimming in...er, uh...swimming out...er, uh...swimming in.  They were all over the place. What the heck are they doing? They were about 300 meters off the beach when we saw them.  2 whales. 

Couldn’t believe it...they had been swimming with these whales for almost 20 minutes, and I had missed it.  The whales started swimming off.  Some of the early comers were on their way out to meet them, but missed the window.  So the rest of us started our normal 7AM swim, when to our surprise we saw the whales start to head our direction. 

Still a ways off, a group of us figured we'd give it a try and see if we could catch them. We started swimming the same direction as the whales.  Closer and closer we got to where we thought they were, when I noticed I was swimming over the top of some choral.  What was really strange was this choral was moving. There they were...2 humpback whales swimming right underneath me (a mother and it’s calf).  It was an absolutely amazing.

What was even more amazing was they hung around for another 15 minutes as we enjoyed the experience.  At one point, both whales swam under me again and started to surface...as I turned around to watch them come up, the tail of the calf waved right in front of my face.  Not any further away than the length of my arm. 

It’s one thing to be swimming with the whale sharks in the Georgia Aquarium, but there is something special about swimming with whales in the wild.  And it was just a normal day in Manly.

An experience of a lifetime, and I will never forget it as a part of my time here in Australia. This summer I’m shooting for my first ever 6K and 10K in the ocean.  I’m hunting the big white whale next...

(Note:  The following is a picture of 2 humpbacks to give everyone an idea of what I saw...these are not the actual whales, but you can imagine how much I wish there was a camera there :-)