Dolphins swim in to save the day | Your Local History

Around 2005, a pod of false killer whales beached themselves in Geographe Bay, just along from the Yacht Club.

Many volunteers were at the scene trying to shepherd the whales back into deeper water.

At around 4.00pm, I received a call from DPAW (now DBCA) asking if I could bring my 14.5m boat called ‘Isabella‘ to the scene to try and help shepherd the pod of whales back out into the Bay and to guide them around the top of Cape Naturaliste.

DPAW had managed to contain the pod in a tight group off the beach, and as the weather conditions were deteriorating, they felt the flotilla of small boats already on the scene would not cope with the pending weather conditions as we headed further out into the bay.

Having put together a crew, we arrived at the Yacht Club around 5.00pm and along with I think I recall the sea rescue boats from both Busselton and Bunbury, we proceeded to shepherd the whales towards Cape Naturaliste.

Once out into the deeper ocean, the weather started turning bad, and the smaller boats turned back.

The whales were nervous and fidgety, with many breaking from the pod and trying to head for the beach.

I was constantly navigating the boat back and forth trying to keep the pod together while still slowly heading for the Cape.

It was getting dark, and we had to turn all the lights off the boat just so we could have a clear view of the whales in the water – not an easy task, which became quite challenging between the three boats.

The sea was rough at this stage, and it had now started to rain, the whales became even more agitated.

I was operating ‘Isabella‘ like a Kelpie dog on the farm, backwards and forwards, and rounding the whales up and then pushing them back into the pod.

As I thought we were going to lose them just off Eagle Bay, a pod of dolphins suddenly moved in.

They moved amongst the whales as if to calm them, the whales and dolphins seemed to find a rhythm, all swimming together.

We continued to guide the group, up around the Cape, to safer waters – the time had come, we were now able to leave them to it and head back to Geographe Bay – now very cold and wet from having been on the bridge of the boat for some hours.

Back at Port Geographe we all headed to the bar where a glass of warming rum was poured for each of us.

We heard later that the authorities had a plane up that very next day, to check the coast from Cape Naturaliste South, and that they found no whales had beached.

An unforgettable event for myself and the crew.

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