‘You want to be mugged’ Inside Gold Coast’s successful whale watching season

Sea World’s whale watching season has been off to a successful start, averaging over 10 whales spotted every day. Find out more.

Gold Coast’s whale watching season is off to a successful start, running over 150 tours in just 66 days.

Chelsea Vendy, Sea World Cruises Marina Mammal Specialist Chelsea Vendy said more whales have been ‘mugging’ and ‘spy hopping’, the more the season progresses.

“If you’re ever going to get mugged, you want to be mugged by humpback whales, we are getting a lot of really big adult whales swimming over to the boat, especially in this last week.

“Mugging is when the whale comes up really close to the boat and swims around and under it too.

”They’re swimming over, hanging out around the vessel from anywhere to like, 10 minutes, up to an hour or more, they just sit next to the boat.

“They do a behaviour called spy hopping, and it’s when they actually put their head out of the water, they sit vertically in the water and poke their head out above the surface.

“It’s kind of got to the point of the season that we’re going whale watching, but we’re also being watched by a whale, it’s actually amazing.

“You can stand along the edge of the boat and you can see their eyes watching and as everyone’s sort of moving around on the boat, they’ll just sit there floating next to the boat, and you can see their eyes like tracking everyone and watching,” she said.

Whales spotted from Sea World Cruises over the weekend. Picture: Supplied

New, world-first technology on Sea World Cruises will also help guests watch the mugging whales more closely.

“This season we’ve got underwater cameras which no other whale watching company in the world has.

“When we stop the boat and sit there, we can actually turn the cameras on when we’re motionless, and if the whales are swimming under the boat we can see them,” she said.

Whales spotted from Sea World Cruises over the weekend. Picture: Supplied

Ms Vendy also said she has seen some very unique animals on the tours in recent weeks.

“I saw a juvenile leopard shark and I’ve never seen one on a whale watch tour before, and it swam up next to the boat, cruised around for a little bit, and then disappeared.

“They’re pretty rare, I’ve been, whale watching for over a decade, and I’ve never seen one, they tend to hang out deeper in the water around sort of reefy areas but this guy was just swimming on the surface,” she said.

Sea World cruises run up to six times a day with an average of 4.9 whales sighted per tour.