June 30th 2018. Saturday.

My first visit to Australia. Came back from Brisbane the previous night and decided to do some whale watching off the coast of Sydney. Weather at Sydney during the week gone by was rather gloomy. Mornings were pretty cold at around 5 to 9 degrees, with daytime temperature reaching a high of about 13 degrees. Such cold weather was accompanied by showers every now and then as well.

June 30th turned out to be a fabulous day to be on the ocean. By the time the ocean going vessel from Captain Cook Cruises was out of the docks, it was a pleasant 16-17 degrees, with clear blue sky’s and a vast blue ocean in front of us.

Whales were probably waiting for such warm weather as well, that they decided to put on a great show. Withing 30 mts of our cruise, we had sighted two humpback whales and were following them along their journey. Stephani, a marine biologist perusing her PHD, was our naturalist for that boat ride. She kept the commentary running through out the cruise, with her extensive knowledge of the marine life that she is studying, but ‘woooow’s and ‘ohhhhhh’s drowned her commentary ever so often.Stephani and the crew members of the Captain Cook Cruises told us that this particular cruise was probably the best whale watching session that they had till day in 2018.

The two whales, which were just frolicking, jumping out of the water and putting on a show, were joined by another whale and the show became even more spectacular. Hard to describe the feeling one gets when you watch such a show, but i will never forget the moment when two of the whales jumped completely out of the water and back in, in a perfectly synchronized manner, right in front of our boat. Was too awestruck to even attempt to make an image of that moment. But that was a moment to savoir and remember.

Did not know how 3 hours went by in the company of these gently giants. It was a perfect way to spend a day on the ocean and then around Circular Quay. My last day in Sydney, before I started my journey back home was well spent and was a memorable one indeed.

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