Montague Island Tour/Whale Watching

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

The lighthouse on Montague Island

Some of the nesting sea birds

View of our boat from the light house

We headed to Montague Island.  It is a nature reserve.  The national park staff live on the island and guests may stay, but there are no permanent residents anymore.  We saw lots of nesting birds, the lighthouse built from one rock on the island, a spot where the US had a secret military base in the 1950's, a very barren landscape, and a glimpse of a baby penguin.  Unfortunately, it was in a penguin house, so it was very hard to see.  If we had gone to the island at dusk, we would have been able to see the penguins as they come ashore to their nests.

New Zealand fur seals

Australian fur seals

Once we got back on the boat, we went to see the New Zealand fur seals and the Australian fur seals.  They don't ever combine groups.  Also, the New Zealand fur seals like to have space between them while the Australian fur seals like to be jumbled together.  They were really neat to see.  We thought about going swimming with them, but the water had come up from Antarctica and was too cold.

First family photo in Australia

A small glimpse of a whale

The next part of the tour involved whale watching.  We went really far out trying to find the whales. We actually can now say we have been on the continental shelf of Australia.  We saw a few from a distance and a couple came next to the boat, but they wouldn't stay near us.  We were not too upset because we had such a good view of them while going to the Great Barrier Reef.  Dagan was especially happy because he thinks when they come up under the boat, they will end up tipping the boat over.  He will be happy if we never go whale watching again.

Some of the dolphins

One of the albatross

Fortunately, we did see lots of dolphins.  We enjoyed seeing them.  They were swimming and jumping right next to the boat.  There were also more birds than we would have thought.  There were shearwaters and albatross.   It was the first time any of us got to see either of these birds.  The albatross is a huge bird.  We learned that they can fly for 20 hours straight and can go 10 years without ever going to land. 

On the way back, we stopped to watch bait fish busting the surface of the water.  There were tons of birds swooping around trying to get the bait.

First sting ray

After we docked, we saw our first sting rays.  They were feeding on the scraps left by the fishermen.  They didn't stick around very long, so we will have to come back tomorrow.