Colleen Smetham and her husband, Paul, were enjoying lunch on their boat in King George SoundAustralia, when they encountered a special visitor: a southern right whale that came to say hello.
“It seemed to be heading our way,” Smetham told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in a June 29 interview. “So we pulled the anchor up just thinking in case it gets caught up in the rope, or we need to disappear quickly.”
But Smetham and her husband didn’t need to disappear. Instead, their newfound friend spent about 20 minutes swimming around their boat, she wrote in a Facebook post.
“These types of interactions when whales investigate are priceless. Beautiful, gentle, intelligent,” one person commented on the post.
“That’s heaven,” another person commented on Facebook.
Smetham described the creature as “very friendly” in her post.
“It was just so calm and gentle and really curious. It didn’t even glance at the boat,” Smetham told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “We were in the right place at the right time and met the right whale.”
King George Sound is on the southwestern coast of Australia.
Southern right whales
Southern right whales are found throughout the Southern Hemisphere and are considered endangered under the Endangered Species Act, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The massive creatures can grow to be between 43 and 56 feet long, and they can weigh up to 176,000 pounds, NOAA said. The whales have “stocky” dark bodies and can have white bellies, chin patches and callosities on their large heads. They don’t have a dorsal fin.
The species migrate seasonally, spending their summers in high-latitude feeding areas and winters in low-latitude breeding grounds, according to NOAA.
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