Living the Dream--Whales on Moreton Bay

Spring has sprung in Brissie

 We’re really loving life in Brissie—we’re making nice friends, the weather is fantastic, the location is excellent the only real drawback is that while we know creatures live in the murky fast swirling river, mostly they’re bull sharks.

I’m missing blue water. I miss getting up in the morning looking over the side and deciding the only sensible thing to do is jump in for a swim. I miss seeing the graduated shades of blue the very same way my eyes longed for the cool comfort of green when we spent a year in the desert.  Mostly though I miss the creatures; the familiar fish that gather in the shade of our hulls; or the charming short-term residents (a sea lion in Baja that spent a week with us and liked it when Maia blew bubbles on her tummy, the dugong in Vanuatu that were sent to us by magic); predictable visitors (the 8am whale, or afternoon dolphins); and the surprises (giant manta rays, curious reef sharks, shy turtles, a mama humpback and her calf…)

In Brisbane, underwater life has been replaced with cockatoos that play in our rigging, flying foxes that fill the sky at night and kookaburras with hyena laughs that make you join in with a giggle. But I still miss that blue water.

heading down the river

 We should sail the 11 miles down the river to the sea more often—but there always seems to be some fun social event holding us here, or a project that needs our attention. But sometimes we get lucky and social events, projects and seeing the ocean mean the same thing.

We set off down the river on a boat much bigger than ours. Evan had overseen its refit and the fact the engine stopped twice meant it was still going through a few teething pains. No one seemed to care though, and as we approached the north end of Moreton Bay we started to see whales.

The southern humpbacks migrate 6000km from their feeding grounds in Antarctica to the lagoons in the Great Barrier Reef to mate and give birth. On the return journey, some stop in Moreton Bay for a time. We saw mamas and babies frolicking in the warm clear water. Some of the people onboard had never seen whales before and we felt a little greedy as we tallied not simply the number of times we’d seen whales on our trip so far (this turned out to be far more than we can count) but the number of whale species we’ve seen in the wild (nine for Ev and Maia, ten for me thanks to the Belugas I saw in the St Lawrence).

The day on the bay ended too soon and we were home to our boat by sunset. Maia and I went to the shops to pick up dinner and she told the clerk about our day. “That’s my dream,” the girl told us, “to see a whale in the wild.” As we walked back to the boat, and the kookaburras laughed, Maia commented what a funny feeling it is to get to live another person’s dream, “I’ll have to remember to stay grateful.” She told me.