Tourist travelling in a boat in the Sydney Harbour got thrilled when they saw a Humpback Whale performing impressive headstand just few meters away from the boat. The Humpback Whales are known for their haunting and melodic songs and for breaching (rise and break through the surface of water) with amazing acrobatic abilities.

The humpback whale was expected to be 30-tonned and 49 Feet long. The whale breached a headstand by pointing its tail skywards. Peter Chai captured this bizarre stunt just 1 km away from the shore and said that the Humpback Whale did this as a ‘show off’. He even said that the travelers were lucky that they saw such an unusual spectacle.

Peter was on a Whale Watching Sydney vessel, he said, “This whale was breaching a lot, doing a lot of acrobatics in the air, but this headstand was very unusual.”

“It was a young juvenile whale and I think it was for the benefit of the boat of people that was looking at it. Humpback whales will sometimes perform tail slaps but I have never seen themselves raise their tail upwards out of the water like that. Usually they just slap it a little bit out of the water, but this kind of reverse breach is very unusual – they are very few and far between. In fact they are actually very inquisitive – you may see them do breaches when there are no boats or humans around, but it is not often you would see something unusual like this. It is like it did it for the tourists – they definitely do show off for the boats. I am pretty sure it is a ‘look, I am here’ type of thing. It looked like a headstand or a handstand.”

He added, “There is always lots of whooping and hollering from the tourists and this time was no exception – often they have never seen a whale before. When they do their acrobatics up close it is amazing, this one you could even see the barnacles on its tail.”