There is something about the waters around Port Stephens that is so appealing! We left Broughton earlier this week, headed for Swansea, at the head of Lake Macquarie. What a treat of aerial acrobatics by gannets and whales alike! So we could not resist showing you the delights of our passage.
Dawn departures are always rich in colour, a reward for getting up early.
Dawn departure from Broughton Island
The Australian Gannets were showing great interest in our lures, and although a bit worried they might dive for them, we witnessed a display of flying prowess at the back of Take It Easy.
As for the whales, if they were initially sleeping as we left, they were certainly wide awake and active later in the morning, with much tail lobbing, again quite close to the boat! That day we saw over a dozen of these beautiful creatures. We even got a radio call from Marine Rescue Lake Macquarie as we were nearing the Swansea bar: two whales were frolicking at the leads. We had to wait for them to swim away before Take It Easy could enter!
We are now in Lake Macquarie for a few days and will tell you about that little adventure in the next post.
Sv-Anui 
Looks beautiful.
Thanks Leanne, it was magic!
You are having a great whale exhibition, aren’t you ! I am back in Gippsland now, but we saw plenty of them, but not too close to the boat. There were two ‘sleeping’ on the surface tho, fairly close. Enjoy Lake Macquarie.
Hi Doug! Yes sailing in the middle of the whale migration has been amazing! The whale logs are a bit tricky in the early morning, aren’t they!
Glad to see you still have whales – the numbers were reducing in our last passage – only three crossed our paths and none of those showed any sign of giving us a show. As a consolation however the biggest pod of dolphins we’d seen in a quite a while spent some time frolicking with us. Great undershot of the gannet!
Hi Trish – We have seen that many whales that we have nearly forgotten about dolphins! It has been such a treat. Hope you are both OK. Thinking of you. By the way the massive thunderstorms came last night. Scary! Thank god we were not sailing.
Thanks Chris. Yes. We were looking at the weather this morning and wondering how you fared.
Fantastic pictures! You have made great friends I see…have a great time my friends. 🙂
Thanks HJ – yes between the birds and the whales we have great company!
Fantastic encounters – thank you for providing the land bound a glimpse of the wonderful things you are seeing. Just a little bit, no make that very, envious.
Well you know you are welcome to join us any time. We are making our way south!
Incredible “birds in flight” photos! What character they have!
Hi Craig – yes they were quite close to the back of the boat, investigating our trawling lines, so you can get some good ‘behaviour’ shots!