By the time we left Wooli to head north into Queensland, it was well into the whale migration period, where the Humpbacks travel north from Antarctica through to their breeding grounds under the less of the headlands and islands of the Queensland coast.

The Humpbacks were thick in the water, constantly surrounding us and requiring a keen lookout to avoid collisions. These magestic creatures seem to effortlessly glide along, with the same ambition as us, of getting north for the winter.

Collisions were not always our responsibility, as just south of Byron Bay, a pair of young bucks swam out of a pod, and porpoising along side by side, approached us aggressively. As they dived below the bow, one was too slow, and held his huge tail fin in front of our port bow to crash in to. The boat shuddered and shook, but later investigation showed the only damage was the line of paint being swiped off along the keel.