If you are keen now to learn more about the Dwarf Minke Whales visit the Minke Whale Project that has been researching them for decades.

Some brief points

I sailed from Cairns overnight on July 15 and and spent a few days out along Ribbon Reef 9 and 10 before flying back to Cairns from Lizard Island on July 19, 2021.

My encounters adhered to the Code of Practice for dwarf minke whale interactions in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (read Code) and were supervised by a researcher with over 20 years experience with the whales.

The whales visit the northern Great Barrier Reef each winter and form the only known predictable aggregation of these whales in the world.

The whales control the interactions and often stayed for 2 hours or even many more.

They were first discovered in the 1980’s and are not yet formally described with very little know about them. They are currently regarded as a subspecies of the northern hemisphere minke Balaenoptera acutorostrata.

They usually grow to between 6 and 9 metres in length and weigh several tonnes.