Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity.” ~ Moby Dick

Recently, my little pirate and I took to the high seas on an adventure, the salt and spray in our faces, with the bob and dip of the boat against the crisp blue sky and our eyes fixed on the deep blue in the hopes of spotting a whale.

Just over two hours from Canberra, we had found ourselves off the coast of Eden with a northwest wind doing its best to chop the ocean and challenge the constitution of the modern seafarers – my pirate included.

Two hours in, hardly a whale in sight and my now green pirate asked, “Mummy, why are you not getting seasick like me?”

I had felt confident that the salt that ran in my veins and the love of running the decks, climbing the rigging of tall ships and bobbing on the ocean currents would surely have been passed on to this little girl now cradled in my arms in a pirate hat.

Then she shouted, “Whale!”

All eyes were drawn to the point of her tiny finger where a humpback mother on her back was basking in the unseasonably warm day, the slap of her flippers echoing through the air and rippling the sea. Around her breached a calf with all the youthful exuberance and delight of a child in a new playground.

The pirate perked up and squealed. “Look mummy, look, they are playing like you and I.”

It was a beautiful.

We were just whale watchers observing an intimate moment between a mother and child but in this very spot a mere 100 years ago there would be no place for just watching.

A sighting such as this would herald rowboats and a pod of killer whales – working in tandem with the whalers – to corral the mother and calf into the shallows of Twofold Bay to meet their fate.

It strikes our modern sensibilities as violent but all were motivated by survival.

The humpbacks and sperm whales following the rhythm of migration south, the men the lucrative whale oil or bones and the killer whales the spoils of such doom. Today, it is tourism that brings people to Eden to see the whales migrate and to revel in the stories of adventure, wild weather and the strange connections with the deep that ebb and flow through the town.

This weekend marks the Eden Whale Festival (Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 November), a unique event that celebrates our fascination with these majestic creatures of the deep.

The Eden Killer Whale Museum is the centrepiece as a nautical treasure trove of all things whaling, filled with intriguing stories of the whales that worked with the men, the indigenous connection, the strange uses for whale resources, the tales of lives lost at sea in the pursuit and the sighting of the all mysterious great blue whale.

The festival is a drawcard for families with a quirky street parade kicking off at 10am on Saturday, a pop up fun park for children with loads of entertainment, workshops, an oyster shucking competition, tours of the tall ship HMAS Endeavour and the whaling station, kayak tours of the bay, talks from people like Haans Siver of the Sea Shepherd, and of course, whale watching from both land and sea.

It promises to be a day with a difference.

A week or two on from our adventure my little pirate wants to keep her feet firmly planted on land but her eyes light up when she talks of the calf and its mother playing in the ocean.

And I’m so grateful we still have the chance just to watch these beautiful creatures as they pass by our coast.

The essentials

What: Eden Whale Festival

When: Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 November 2014

Where: Eden, Sapphire Coast NSW (2.5 hour drive from Canberra)

Activities: Whale watching, street parade, tours and more.

How much: Entry is free

Web: Find them on Facebook