{"id":226971,"date":"2025-10-20T07:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T07:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/226971\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T07:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T07:59:09","slug":"watch-blue-whale-spotted-on-akaroa-cruise-in-first-sighting-since-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/226971\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch: Blue whale spotted on Akaroa cruise in first sighting since 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe had word from another operator that there was a humpback whale just at the harbour entrance,\u201d Waghorn said.<\/p>\n

\"PassengersPassengers were stunned at the rare blue whale sighting. Photo \/ Sinclair Lannucci<\/p>\n

However, by the time Akaroa Dolphins arrived at the harbour entrance, the whale had moved north.<\/p>\n

But Waghorn said this didn\u2019t mean giving up their chances of such a rare sighting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just went up north and we found a big pod of dolphins,\u201d Waghorn said. <\/p>\n

But what was originally thought to be a humpback whale turned out to be a much rarer sighting. <\/p>\n

\u201cRight next to that, popped up this huge blue whale,\u201d Waghorn said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, hold on guys, this is not a humpback \u2013 we have to get a bit of identification on this guy!<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was huge, probably twice the size of the 15m catamaran, at least.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty amazing. I didn\u2019t even get my camera out; I was just taking it all in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waghorn said this was only the second time passengers had the chance to spot a whale while on a cruise since his parents opened Akaroa Dolphins 21 years ago. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the passengers to get it on a scheduled cruise, it\u2019s pretty cool!\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He said staff had also been looking out for Migaloo, an all-white breed of humpback whale<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He said many passengers asked, \u201cIs that the white [whale]?\u201d after footage was shared on social media of an albino humpback whale surfacing south of Kaik\u014dura on October 10.<\/p>\n

Migaloo translates as \u201cwhite fella\u201d in the Mayi-Katuna Aboriginal language from north Queensland, as he was first sighted in 1991 off the coast of Byron Bay. <\/p>\n

However, he has not been spotted around Australia since 2020.<\/p>\n

He was first seen here in 2015 and is known to travel in New Zealand waters \u2013 with gaps in sighting history.<\/p>\n

Waghorn said while \u201cwhales are starting to become a thing of the area\u201d, it was a lucky sighting for everyone on board. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe had word from another operator that there was a humpback whale just at the harbour entrance,\u201d Waghorn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[47025,137178,64,63,3929,45120,6345,15454,38814,13057,39598,5587,4717,13053,2652,137179,36575,124700,128,24237,1113,49150,137177,137180,51776,35147,7137,11814,51775,38810,8281,338],"class_list":["post-226971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-47025","tag-akaroa","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blue","tag-cruise","tag-dolphin","tag-during","tag-emerged","tag-first","tag-friday","tag-from","tag-in","tag-morning","tag-on","tag-onboard","tag-passengers","tag-rare","tag-science","tag-sight","tag-sighting","tag-since","tag-spotted","tag-spotting","tag-treated","tag-trip","tag-watch","tag-water","tag-were","tag-whale","tag-when","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}