Had an early surf at my local break (Secret Harbour). Not bad and no one within 300 metres of me. As I took off on a wave I heard a long whistling sound behind me. Paddling back out I thought that my ears must have been playing up until a whale surfaced about 50 metres away. He stuck his barnacled head out of the water a few times checking me out before slowly heading north, a couple of tail flaps and rising up vertically once before disappearing. Went home feeling warm even though the air temp was about 5*C.

Suping out behind the back breakers at a local beachy last year, I had a whale and her calf swimming about 100m from myself and a longboarder. As we were mid conversation - the mother broke away from her calf and swam straight toward us. I turned to paddle away when she got a bit close and just as she got about a metre away (I was a bit worried at this stage), she turned, kicked her tail and swam away.

The wake from the tail nearly knocked me off my board - awesome experience!

Awesome,

We had a similar experience Sunday at our local break...

Fantastic innit...