10 April 2016

Guide Summary and Photographs

Today was the epitome of a lazy Sunday and a perfect day to be out on the water. The sea was flat and the weather was warm with a nice breeze, preventing it from being unpleasant.

We head off in the afternoon and cruised along the shore-line until we spotted our Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphins. They were, once again, in very shallow water and they seemed to be enjoying the day just as much as we were. In the distance, one dolphin lob-tailed and beat its tail against the water which is always nice to see. Two of the dolphins approached the boat which allowed for us to admire them up-close before they moved off.

The visibility is still absolutely awesome in the shallows which made for an awesome visit to Slashfin, our sister company’s shark cage diving vessel. When we arrived, we noticed a couple of Jellyfish in the water and watched them for a short while before a very special shark arrived.

There is lots of debate surrounding the identification of the shark, but what we know for sure is that this creature was in a very bad state when we first spotted it in our bay in December. Since then, it has returned in a far healthier state and is such a character! This shark is incredibly relaxed around the boats and almost appears to come up and just “Have a look” every now and then. This sharks dorsal fin is pretty severely damaged which makes it distinctive and, in a way, beautiful. After coming up to check us out, she made her way towards the bait, which she then lunged for. After this awesome display we left the shallows feeing very content.

Our next sighting was that of a raft of penguins. These Torpedo’s in Tuxedo’s stuck around for several minutes which is somewhat unusual. They were also in close proximity to the boat, seemly unperturbed by us which allowed for us to get a really nice look at them. It is always epic to see them in the water, especially so close and it’ was definitely a sighting to remember.

Geyser Rock is still pretty empty with a large amount of seals still at sea. The seals were somewhat skittish today and we had a couple of occasions where they bolted for the water. This caused chaos amongst these awkward little guys which made for a pretty humorous sight for our guests as they stumbled over each other.

We began to make our way back to the harbour when we spotted thousands of Cape Cormorants on the water. We stayed with these birds for a while and managed to get some beautiful shots of them with Gansbaai Mountain in the background. This was our last sighting and a perfect end to a perfect trip!

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