Blue Dolphin Marine Tours

ook your tickets to guarantee a front row seat next to these incredible marine mammals!

Join Hervey Bay’s only multi-award winning whale watching sail vessel and one of the smallest in the fleet.

WHALE WATCHING

Most of the whales you’ll see are 10 to 13 metres in length and 30 tonnes or more, that’s over 5 times the boats weight. So when you see a whale from Blue Dolphin you really see a whale!

From late July to November the calm waters of Hervey Bay and Fraser Island become a sanctuary for the most magnificent and beautiful humpback whales.

Every year the whales return to Hervey Bays calm and crystal clear waters where they teach their newly born calf’s to feed and communicate before swimming on south back to their feeding ground in Antarctica. Along with the mother whales and calfs, Hervey Bay and Fraser Island also see the return of the “teenagers”. The teenagers return to learn the migratory route as well as be cheeky and have fun as all teenagers do.

Occasionally we see the “heat runs” where the males chase a female at an extraordinary speed changing direction sometimes on a 0 degree axis so that they can mate with their chosen female. This is very exciting to watch and experience first hand.

Your skipper Peter has over 27 years experience with marine mammals, 14 years of which were spent as marine mammal trainer at Seaworld. During those years Peter was involved with saving many stranded marine mammals.

You can rest assured that your day will be very informative thanks to Peter’s wealth of experience and knowledge. He welcomes all your questions so please be sure to ask.

• Multi award winning sail vessel
• Low passenger numbers
• Over 27 years experience with marine mammals
• Multi lingual crew
• Lowest carbon footprint – responsible whale watching
• Morning tea
• Afternoon tea
• Full buffet lunch
• Complimentary beverage (beer, wine or soft drink)
• Fully licensed
• Courtesy bus available

DOLPHIN TOURS

The morning Dolphin Cruise is on the waters of the Great Sandy Straits by Hervey Bay and Fraser Island. Here we look for the bottlenose dolphins (aduncas) and the indo-pacific humpback dolphins (sousa chineses), which is a lesser known species. Both of these species reside in small residential pods of up to 20 and are found around Hervey Bay and Fraser Island. The waters are also home to dugongs, turtles, seabirds and other marine life.

Our dolphin watching tours started back in December 1996 and we have maintained a 90% to 95 % success rate for finding the dolphins.

The cruise lasts for around 4 hours and morning tea is provided. During summer and weather permitting we also manage a swim on one of the shallow sand banks.

The bottlenose dolphin is the better known of the two species and we now have about 25 individuals we can recognised by their dorsal fin. We have been working on a photo id catalogue for the last couple of years.

The indo-pacific humpback is a little bit smaller and a little harder to find and photograph them can be a difficult task but can be well worth it. Most guests have never seen this species before so it is always a good day when we see them.

The dugongs of the Great Sandy Straits have been heavily impacted upon in the recent years by floods down the Mary and Susan River systems and the loss of the sea grass beds. On the days that we encounter a dugong it is a great bonus for all on board.

Blue Dolphin is the ONLY way to see the whales at Hervey Bay. The closeness you experience with the whales and often dolphins while on board Blue Dolphin is like nothing else. No crowded over sized boat here!