Curious whales say hello at Byron Bay
THESE awe-struck sailors had a once in a lifetime experience when some friendly giants stopped by to say hello off the coast of New South Wales.
DEAN Cropp has seen many more whales than most people, but a recent encounter off the coast of Byron Bay was enough to leave him speechless.
The charter boat operator and filmmaker was on his way back to Sydney from an expedition in the Coral Sea he had what he called a once in a lifetime experience.
“We’d been filming, playing around, looking at shipwrecks. We were just sailing down the coast, there was no wind and we just stopped, so we were swimming around and just enjoying the water,” he told news.com.au.
Suddenly three curious giants appeared out of the blue, inspecting his luxury catamaran and playing with the swimmers.
Mr Cropp, who spent 16 years as a cameraman for Seven News, wasted no time recording the incredible encounter.
“The whale came right under the boat, in between the hulls, straight towards me, turned on its back and went past,” he said in the video.
“I’ve never had an experience like that, that was absolutely wild.”
He told news.com.au there were two bigger whales and a smaller one, which in itself was the length of his boat.
“As a cameraman, I’ve filmed whales before, but usually it’s fleeting. This was a mugging, they just wouldn’t leave!” he joked.
The stunning video shows the whales playing in the deep, as well as popping their heads up above the water to check out their surroundings.
The got so close you can even see the barnacles and remoras — or sucker fish — holding onto the larger animals’ skin and hitching free rides.
Mr Cropp spends six months of the year doing cruises around Sydney Harbour on his boat Barefoot, and the other six months of the year filming documentaries and exploring the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean.
“I’ve grown up on the water. My father, his name is Ben Cropp, he’s a fairly well-known filmmaker and oceanographer and explorer. I’ve been doing it all my life.
“We’ve only got a couple more weeks of charters, of guests on the boat, and then in another month and a half we’ll start preparing the boat for our disappearing act.”
He told news.com.au his next expedition will take him off towards New Caledonia, and he hopes to have many more run-ins with wildlife.
“This encounter was really a once in a lifetime, to have them come up to us and spend so much time while the boat wasn’t moving. This was quite exceptional.”