Life’s a breach if you want a whale of a good time

Humpback whales thrilled onlookers off Sydney’s Manly as the annual migration brings spectacular breaches, launching the whale-watching season in style

Humpback whales welcome winter in spectacular fashion. Picture: JP Goodridge and Simon Millar

Humpback whales have welcomed winter in spectacular fashion, signalling an end to their summer feeding frenzy by putting on a show off a Sydney beach.

Having spent months gorging on krill in the waters of Antarctica ahead of their seasonal migration, the whales arrived off Manly on Sunday.

Sightseers were treated to a show to remember, with tourism operators ­declaring the whale-watching season had well and truly commenced, with the high-flyers not afraid to entertain onlookers.

Members of one group of tourists were said to be “stoked” when the giant humpbacks approached a whale-watching boat on Sunday morning.

“It’s always exciting when they get super active, you get a lot of whales just cruising along, it’s a long migration 12,000km to 16,000km, but getting to see some of them that get super active always makes everyone’s day,” Go Whale Watching operator Simon Millar said.

Those out on the water on Sunday were extremely lucky, with some tourists joining multiple trips over the course of a week in the hope of seeing one of the ­giants. “It’s a bit of a misconception that people think every time they go whale watching, they get to see jumping humpback whales; that’s certainly not the case,” Mr Millar said.

Humpback whales welcome winter in spectacular fashion. Picture: JP Goodridge and Simon Millar

The tourism operator, who has been running tours for more than two decades, said the whales would spend 3-5 months off Sydney during their travels. “From the 1st of June onwards, you get a ­really steady stream of whales coming up the east coast here so it’s a really good stream of whales coming up now to the Coral Sea to go and breed,” Mr Millar said.

“Every year, the whales ­migrate north to the Coral Sea during the winter months to breed and for the pregnant females to give birth.

“Then they spend four to eight weeks up there before  they head back down to Antarctica to feed for the summer… where they’ll spend about three to five months,” he said.

He said there would be whales off Sydney from mid-May through to early November.

“It’s been a slightly slow start to the season – we think the whales might have been down there feeding for a bit longer and now they’re making their way north and in really good numbers this last day, which is great” he said.