See humpback whales off North Stradbroke Island

STRADBROKE Island nature love Jennie Truman never tires of watching gentle giants of the deep.

Jennie Truman, the Whale Watcher of Point Lookout.

SOMETIMES when the humpbacks are ­heading north there’ll be four males chasing a female. They’ll do tail slaps, show off with spectacular roll overs and even do head crashes right down on the poor female,” says whale watcher Jennie Truman.

“As they make their way back from calving grounds near the Great Barrier Reef you might also see pale grey newborns riding on top of their mothers’ noses. It’s so ­precious,” she adds.

While Hervey Bay has grabbed the whale watching limelight in Queensland, there is another place much closer to Brisbane that has an enviable whale watching pedigree. And it’s free.

Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island is renowned as one of the best land-based whale watching sites in the world. And June to November is the prime time to see them.

Jennie Truman has been recording whale sightings from her home above Drift Gallery at North Gorge for 21 years.

The number of sightings has risen from 250 to 2000 a year, steadily increasing since whaling ceased at Tangalooma on nearby Moreton Island in 1962. In one day alone last year, she recorded 120 whales from her front veranda.

And, that’s not all. She’s also Straddie’s turtle hatchling midwife and its weather ­whisperer. There’s not much about the natural world on North Stradbroke that doesn’t grab her attention.

Jennie’s been coming to Port Lookout since her family bought the old Oceanic fishing cottage near North Gorge in 1964. Wild and woolly Frenchmans Beach below the Gorge was her backyard.

News_Image_File: A humpback whale breaches off North Stradbroke Island.

Moving to Straddie in 1988, she and her husband John ran the general store. They eventually converted to The Green Room, which supplies fresh fruit and veg and healthy foods. They also added Drift Gallery, which works as a ­creative outlet for her nature-based art as well as ­offering handmade crafts.

Each whale season, Jennie and John started keeping lists of every whale they saw. Over the years, their monitoring ­became more sophisticated.

“Now we note each whale’s markings, the shape of their dorsal fins, their behaviour, the current line they follow, how many in a pod and how long they take to cross the ­horizon line,” she says.

“If they’re cruising they might travel up to six knots an hour, taking about 40 minutes to cross our line of view. If they are sleeping it could be much slower at about one or two knots an hour.”

The Trumans have come to know a few favourite whales and get great pleasure welcoming them back each year.

“We named one of the most beautiful whales we’ve ever seen Seven/Eighths. We think it’s even more stunning than the albino Ningaloo. It refers to a term we use as weather monitors. Eight/Eighths means complete cloud cover. Seven/Eighths is when there is a touch of colour in the sky. For this whale, she is white with just a fleck of black.”

If you’re lucky, you’ll hear whale song underwater when you go diving at Point ­Lookout. In winter, people dive to see grey nurse sharks at Flat Rock. In summer, you can watch the underwater ballet of manta rays.

In warmer months, you might also be able to help Jennie monitor turtle hatchings. While they are not nearly as prolific as at Mon Repos, near Bundaberg, Jennie has trained under Col Limpus who wants baseline studies to monitor the effects of global warming on turtles. Sometimes she and pet kelpie, Plum, perform midwife duties when the nests are in danger.

News_Image_File: Point Lookout.

“I’ve trained Plum to find the egg chambers even though the openings are just two ­inches wide. She gently points them out with her paw. It’s quite remarkable really.”

Occasionally they have to protect the hatchlings as they rush to the water if it looks like they’ll be swooped upon at low tide by brahminy kites.

“This past summer we had 11 different individual turtles come in to nest, the most ever on Straddie,” she says.

“Each loggerhead lays about 140 eggs and each green turtle about 100.”

Just as she does with the turtle hatchings, Jennie looks at the overall pattern of whale migration for the season … how many calves come through, what line the whales take, whether they are early or late.

She never tires of her regular routine here on Straddie.

The writer was a guest of Stradbroke Island Holidays.

GO2 STRADBROKE ISLAND

Getting there

It’s a one-hour drive from the Gold Coast or Brisbane airports to ferries at Toondah Harbour, Cleveland.

Staying there

Stradbroke Island Holidays has a wide range of accommodation on offer at Point Lookout.

Doing there

The best place for whale watching is along North Gorge Walk at Point Lookout. Manta Lodge & Scuba Centre offers daily PADI diving and snorkel trips and scuba courses.

More

stradbrokeisland.com

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News_Image_File: One of the pristine beaches on North Stradbroke Island.