When Micheline-Nicole and Curt Jenner started counting humpbacks off Western Australia they could not spot a fluke to save their lives.

The newly married Sydney-born scientist and her American husband had been working on a research station in Maui, Hawaii, and then moved to WA in the winter of 1990, aged 25 and 27 respectively, in search of new whaling grounds. With little financial support they built a small tin shed near the last WA whaling station at Cheynes Beach outside Albany and waited for the leviathans.

Whale research recognised: Micheline-Nicole and Curt Jenner put whale research in WA on the map. Credit:Australian Geographic

One, two, three, four days passed. Their faith flagged. On the fifth day, a humpback rocketed out of the depths.

"We'd been sitting there watching the water and wondering, fearing even, that we'd made a huge mistake. And then the humpback leaped," Micheline-Nicole recalls. "Call it our leap of faith."