Sail-a-Whale

"Ha! Ha ha ha! I love these animals!" Captain John shouts from the back of the catamaran. His face is beaming with excitement at the spectacle taking place only 10 meters to the starboard side of the boat.

Three Southern right whales, a mother and her calf and, erm Auntie Maureen are checking us out. Their huge black backs break the water, and the white markings on the heads are clearly visible. Richard the deck hand screams "I've seen her before, she was here last year" pointing to the mum. The calf breaths and a shot of water arcs into the air. The eight passengers on board are collectively holding our breath to see what will happen next.

The family suddenly ducks down beneath the waves and swims right under the twin hulls before appearing again on the port side. For a moment we've been accepted into part of this huge mammals family. And it's bloody amazing. For the next 25 minutes they keep in close contact with the boat occasionally raising their heads above the water, or 'spy hopping' to take a better look at us.

I'm on the HMV Sail-a-way, off the coast of Albany. The large bay is home each year to hundreds of Southern Right (named by hunters because they floated when shot, and contained lots of precious oil) and Humpback whales. They come here because of the warm Leeuwin current which pushes down the cape coast and the relative safety of the bay.

I say relative, because less than 30 years ago, whales were still hunted off the Southern Australian coast. Albany was at the centre of this trade. The aptly named ' Whale World' (party on!) at the nearby Frenchman's bay tells the story of the industry. It finally closed down on November 30 1978, one of the first big successes of the environmental lobby.

Now a new battle is being fought, this time by the Australian government against Japanese whales who are this year hunting 500 humpback whales in Australian governed Antarctic waters.

As we head for home with a wonderful pod of bottlenose dolphins playing in the bow wave before us, a humpback 'breaches' and jumps almost out of the water ahead of us. The noise is audible from over a kilometer away. Our luck seems endless this bright cold morning, and I don't want to be anywhere else....