Whale Watching! - Birthday Suprise Part 1

        So I've taken the Friday off work for my birthday and Ryan has some suprises installed for me. Running on minimal sleep because Ryan and I were both too excited about the day's adventures we catch the train into the city. First stop is the most important meal of the day, a quick breakfast at Adria Rybar and Grill at Cockle Bay. Ryan says that we should eat light because there will be refreshments provided during the morning's activity. We both just had scrambled eggs on toast, I ordered a hash brown on the side. The eggs were creamy, not bad at all, have had worse. If only I knew what was going to happen to my breakfast later on...

 

        Walking around looking for something... hmm I wonder what that something is??

        "So do you know which boat we're going on?" Ryan asks me. Hmmm.

        Ryan calls the people and they say that the pick up point is now #9 at King Street Wharf.

        Here comes our ride!! Or so we thought... I was definately suprised, Ryan had booked us in on a whale watching cruise, wasn't something either of us had talked about doing.

They decided to change boats today. Oh this is actually our ride!!

The view from the top deck of the boat.

We finally head out to sea.

        Now this is a sight you don't see everyday, unobstructed views of the beautiful Harbour bridge.

Enjoying the view from the top deck.

The old Piers.

        Spectacular view of the architecture, definately taken for granted I think.

A view of the Sydney Opera House that you don't see every day.

Other side of the Opera House.

Our beautiful city.

Good bye Sydney Harbour!

         Token couple shot on board. I look absolutely cold! Ryan is so calm and collected.

Some scenic shots as we leave the harbour.

Look it's a lighthouse!

        We leave the Heads and head into open waters. The ride becomes very rocky, at times I felt like I was going to be thrown overboard, it was hard to walk from one side of the deck to the other. We are searching the open waters for the sight of a whale. 

        There's another boat out there also looking for whales. We are both going around some spotted pods of whales trying to catch sight of them surfacing. At first we do trials, only getting within 300 metres of the pods and trying to gauge their movements and patterns. The other boat seems to be doing the same thing. We move around a bit between a few pods but get very minimal surface movement from them. By now I am feeling the effects of the of the extremely rocky ride and am starting to get quite quesy.

Ohh look!

        We are finally able to get closer to the pods, and I catch a glimpse of the whales which are now very close by. We are only able to get within 100 metres of them by law. Just as the best part of the cruise starts my stomach has turned and I end up throwing up all the contents of my breakfast. I feel absolutely horrible but there was nothing I could do. I crawl down the stairs from the top deck and lie on the seats, there seems to be a few others who were also feeling sea sick. I feel absolutely horrid and tell Ryan to go watch the whales and enjoy himself. There are not alot of shots as Ryan isn't all to familiar with the camera settings.

Some tail action - almost a money shot here.

        Ryan says that it was a spectacular sight just watching the whales swim alongside the boat.

        Not the best shot but if you look closely you can see two or three whales swimming along side each other there. They usually swim in pods of two, three or even four or more.

        Good bye whales, you can see the water spray where the whales are. I pretty much slept through the whole show and ride back home. I was feeling so light headed that I almost got Ryan to cancel lunch but luckily I started feeling a little better once my feet were grounded. I did enjoy the cruise even despite my sea sickness, it was exciting when I got to spot some whale action.

        So once we get off the boat we walk from Darling Harbour to George Street and catch the bus to Circular Quay (the cruise also dropped off at Circular Quay but Ryan was reluctant to keep me on the boat any longer). I kind of knew where we were going for lunch too but didn't want to ruin my own suprise so didn't think too much of it. My suprise lunch will be the next post after this.

This is a photo from the company's website Whale Watching Sydney

        This is a possibility of what we could have seen, this is called a 'breach' but according to Ryan there were no breaches during the cruise.