Whale watching

I thought I would start this blog after reading a friend’s blog recently, so that we could stay in touch with family and friends who are scattered all over the world. It seems like the best way to keep you all up to date and to include photos in our correspondence as well.

Eric and I recently relocated to Australia to start a new life together, after living in Atlanta GA for 6 years (for me, a lifetime for Eric). We’re now living in Brisbane, and everything is really starting to come together for
us in an amazing way. God is truly looking after all of our needs.

Yesterday (7 July 07), we went whale watching for the first time in our lives. We actually didn’t intend to, it just turned out that way. We slept in and then set off for the Gold Coast to do some fishing south of Tweed Heads. Along the way, we picked up my brother Marty, and he suggested that we go to Hastings Point to fish. So, we bought some bait and then got some yummy fish, calamari, prawns and chips (done the Australian way - wrapped in butchers paper all jumbled up together), and headed to Hastings Point. It was only about 1.5 hours from Brisbane and truly a beautiful location.



When we got there it was lunch time, so we pulled out the picnic blanket and sat up on the headland to eat our meal. Absolutely scrumptious, perfect warm winter weather and what a spectacular view!

During lunch, Marty pointed out some spray in the distance, near the horizon, that he said was a whale clearing it’s blow-hole, but we couldn’t really see anything as it was so far away. After lunch, Marty and Eric climbed down the rocks in front of the headland to see whether they would do some rock-fishing or not, and decided not to. As we were making our way back to the car to relocate to another fishing spot, we saw a small crowd of people on the other side of the headland. We looked out into the ocean where they appeared to be looking, and saw a whale jump into the air, landing on it’s back sending spray skyward. We couldn’t believe it - Eric and I have never seen whales before, and have always wanted to. We raced over to the other side of the headland and stood to watch the beautiful hump-back jump every minute or so for the next 15 minutes. He or she appeared to be playing, and enjoying the beautiful weather just like we were. Hump back whales were endangered 20 years ago, but after several years of protection against hunting, they are now a regular sight off Australia’s east coast - however, I have been living in the USA and so haven’t had the pleasure of seeing them, as they were so scarce when I was growing up here that it was very rare to sight one.



After watching the whale for a while, we realised that the whale we’d seen spraying in the distance earlier was actually two more whales, and they were coming into shore to join the first whale. Eric and Marty left to find a place to fish, and I continued to watch the whale jumping, as it began to move north. Before long, it was moving around the headland with the other two whales close behind. Not jumping any longer, it came within 100 yards of us, and I could clearly see their brown backs sliding through the water. I have some video footage of them posted on my MySpace site (myspace.com/aussieinatl ).






After the whales had moved past the group of surfers, and into the distance, I made my way down the beach to where Eric and Marty were fishing, beside a bridge.


I lay down to read for a while, and then joined in the fishing. We caught bream, whiting, flathead, and something else we didn’t recognise. There were plenty of fish sitting in the creek in front of us, and they kept taking our bait before we could reel the hook back in again. There was also a pelican who kept us company.

After that, Eric and I went for a walk on the beach together. The wonderful thing about many Australian beaches is that they are long, white, and generally pretty lonely places. There were a few other people around since it was the school holidays and a Saturday, but not many.

After leaving the beach, we had dinner with Marty, Caris, Nathan, Mum, Dad, Nanna, Aunty Marg and Uncle Chris to celebrate Nanna’s 85th birthday. Wow, 85 years! That’s pretty good. Then, after a wonderful day, we finally drove home.