Look, there in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a 20-tonne humpback whale surprising tourists just a few metres away from their boat in Sydney’s Bondi Beach!
Wildlife photographer, John Goodridge, captured the amazing, majestic moment, on a ‘Go Whale Watching’ cruise.
The UK expat said it was ‘one of the most spectacular breaches he had ever seen’ granted the whale almost ‘swamped’ the small boat into smithereens.
The tourists picked a great day for it, with around 30 whale breaches being recorded in just little over and hour, Mr Goodridge said.
The whales were really playful. Sometimes you can sit out there and not even see one, so we were really lucky.
To see a whale breach is really amazing. They actually do it to clean their skin of all the barnacles and parasites that have built up.
Here in the UK, we seldom come across such large creatures and therefore marvel at such footage.
Earlier this month, near Fox Island outside of Seward, Alaska, footage taken by Cara Wallschlaeger and guide Andrew Smith went viral after their their simple kayak was interrupted by a whale.
As they had the morning off, they decided to venture out to Rugged Island where orcas were known to knock about.
As they were paddling out, the pair saw a familiar humpback whale breaching many times far off in the distance.
As they were in between Hive and Fox island, Cara and Andrew were able to get close to this whale a few times, doing a sounding dive within paddle reach of Andrew’s kayak.
Excited by how close they were getting, and also needing to head back for their afternoon trip, the two decided to turn back north.
The whale came up next to them a few more times and continued to manoeuvre sideways and even underneath the kayaks.
Thankfully, I had my phone ready as can be seen in the video as he manoeuvred sideways through the water right in front of me in my kayak. My heart was definitely pounding!
Not far from Alaska, in Canada, one of the plucky swimmers swam right up to some lodgers.
In an incredible and dramatic scene captured on camera, a collection of the marine mammals made an appearance just off the edge of the dock of a lodge in Canada, with a group of onlookers watching excitedly from the Great Bear Lodge in Port Hardy, British Columbia, as the whales splashed around in the water.
Presumably having spotted what was happening, the visitors at the lodge gathered on the dock and were near enough beside themselves as they realised they were about to see humpback whales up close and personal.
Staring at a circle of bubbles in anticipation of the beats, the onlookers remained silent, probably praying the whales didn’t bugger off before they could take a pic for bragging rights on the ‘Gram.
One of the women pointed towards the water, and seconds later two humpbacks burst from the depths. Everyone was loving it.
Two of the women high-fived at their luck, and turned back to the water just in time to see the whales rise up one last time before dipping back into the sea.