Whale Watching Sydney

~ Welcome to Sydney :)

It so happened that a good fine Friday night I thought to myself, "I want to go whale watching." So after finishing some work on Saturday, I made an impromptu online booking for whale watching the next day.

The company seem to be the popular one around, and if the cruise does not see any whale, one could return on another cruise within the year as a standby passenger. There was complimentary biscuits, coffee/tea and apples onboard.

There was two departure points - Circular Quay or Darling Harbour, also two types of boats - 3 hours bigger boat, or the 2 hours smaller boats. I poked online a little and decided on the bigger boat, reason being bigger boat would be more stable. I was worry of motion sickness.

I took the morning departure at 9.45am. The boat departs from Darling Harbour, and headed to Circular Quay to pick up more passengers. So it was like boat cruise + whale watching, hit 2 birds with one stone.

~ Under the Harbour Bridge

~ Around Circular Quay

~ The obligatory picture on Opera House :P

Then off we went to chase the whales! We were informed of the wind speed and all, in case we changed our mind and want to go another day. Also that there is a safety distance that boats have to be away from whales to protect the whales, something like 100m from adult whales and 300m from their calf.

The one we saw as a mommy whale and her calf. I didn't have the kick ass camera like the guy from the whale watching company, unfortunately. Not even a SLR. His camera was like those you see in football matches, the superbly long ones.

Anyway, here are some measly pictures I took.

And no, just to make things clear. The whales did not jump as high as Willy in Free Willy, though at one point, the calf did breached but I only caught the water splashing in my shot. Still not as high as Willy, over the boy.

Unfortunately, I did experience some motion sickness but fortunately, it was towards the end of the cruise. I read that ginger would be helpful, example ginger candy or some sort but I didn't have any, except a bottle of grated ginger in the fridge. I didn't bring that along, if you are curious. However I overheard some moms telling their children that apples helped with motion sickness. So I went down and grabbed an apple, probably that was the reason why they dished out complimentary apples. I am not sure if it does help but I felt better when the boat started making it's way back to shore.


Side note: I wonder how to carry a 45cm floor fan back by train, and working out how to discard the old spoilt one... hmm..