{"id":242229,"date":"2025-10-26T15:01:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T15:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/242229\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T15:01:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T15:01:16","slug":"talk-about-a-once-in-a-lifetime-experience-see-amazing-moment-8-massive-whales-surprise-divers-on-the-great-barrier-reef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/242229\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTalk about a once in a lifetime experience.\u201d See amazing moment 8 massive whales surprise divers on the Great Barrier Reef"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Scuba divers in Australia\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/environment\/can-the-great-barrier-reef-be-saved\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Great Barrier Reef<\/a> were blown away when a group of surprise visitors \u2013 eight humpback whales \u2013 unexpectedly swam past them in the water.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTalk about an incredible once in a lifetime experience, but this really happened,\u201d says Master Reef Guides on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DPTNtLqgehU\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Guests from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dive_spear_sport_1770\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Dive and Spear Sport 1770<\/a> had just started diving on Llewellyn Reef in the Southern Great Barrier Reef when they were joined by not one, not two, but eight male humpback whales.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey had only been in the water for about five minutes when out of the blue, these eight large and beautiful <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/marine-animals\/humpback-whale-facts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">humpback whales<\/a> swam close by,\u201d says Master Reef Guides.<\/p>\n<p>Although seeing so many humpbacks at once during a scuba dive isn\u2019t something that happens every day, these ocean giants can often be spotted in this area during their breeding season.<\/p>\n<p>The moment humpback whales swim past divers in the Great Barrier Reef. Credit: Hudson Meek, Dive Spear and Sport\u00a01770<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHumpback whale encounters are very common during the winter months, and recently we\u2019ve been having so many incredible experiences,\u201d says Carmen Bolten, owner and master reef guide at Dive Spear and Sport 1770.<\/p>\n<p>Llewellyn Reef \u201cseems to have become a favourite pit stop for the whales, with countless encounters this winter season,\u201d she says. \u201cBut this one will definitely go down as one of the top moments for us and all our divers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Humpback whale used to be hunted commercially but since whaling was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dcceew.gov.au\/environment\/marine\/marine-species\/cetaceans\/humpback-whales-eastern-australia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">banned<\/a> in the Southern Hemisphere, populations have recovered wonderfully. Experts believe that there are now more than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinemammalhabitat.org\/factsheets\/southern-great-barrier-reef-lagoon-coast\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">30,000<\/a> humpbacks in this area. This \u201camazing news\u201d is a great demonstration of how important it is to protect our marine world, Bolten says.<\/p>\n<p>Discover more amazing wildlife videos<\/p>\n<p>Top image credit: Hudson Meek, Dive Spear and Sport\u00a01770<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scuba divers in Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef were blown away when a group of surprise visitors \u2013 eight&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-242229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242229","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=242229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}