Daily Trip 04 January 2018

Guide Summary and Photographs

We had a lovely tour out on the water today, spotting 3 of the Marine Big 5 as well as several different species of birds! Although a little breezy, it was a beautiful day to be out and about in the bay.

Today we launched out of Gansbaai harbour due to the super moon that has just passed. At full and new moon, the gravitational pull of the  moon causes the high tide to be higher and the low tide to be lower, we refer to this as spring tide and in anticipation for this, we tend to head out of Gansbaai due to their harbour being a little deeper. This also means that we get to take the scenic route around Danger Point.

Danger Point was a live with birds today, with various species of birds including a few Artic Skuas, who are also known as Parasitic Jaegers. These beautiful but pesky gulls specialise in stealing food caught by other birds, badgering them until the other bird becomes so stressed they regurgitate their last meal.

The presence of birds also generally tends to indicate the presence of fish, which brings in some of our larger predators too. One such “Predator” was the resident Brydes Whale we found just after coming around Danger Point. This species is named after a Norwegian Whaler who came to South Africa to set up some modern whaling stations a century or so ago. We got to watch this guy come up quite a few times, seeing the dorsal fin and the blue-ish grey back of the animal before it disappeared into the depths.

Our next spot was of two African Penguins sitting on the water. These guys were probably in search of a little fish too, so after viewing them for a few minutes, we decided to part ways and head on over to our Cape Fur  Seal colony on Dyer Island. The little pups on the island were adorable today, with many laying just at the water’s edge, mostly on top of each other. The rest of the island was, however, quite empty with many  of the adults out at sea. Here, we also got to see some Bank Cormorants and some Cape Cormorants before we head towards Slashfin, which was a little quiet.

This was our last stop of the day and, after this, we cruised along to the harbour.

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