Eco Marine Trip, 09 December 2018

Today was yet another awesome day on the deep blue, with us spotting a variety of species and picking up a little bit of plastic to keep our oceans clean. We have almost no swell running at the moment and just a touch of wind to keep things interesting! We’ve had a lot of westerly wind recently, so the water has also been super warm, soaring to about 19°C. We found this out by taking our daily YSI reading in the shallows. After taking this water reading, we hugged the coast and cruised along to our sister company, Marine Dynamics where we hoped to see a shark or two. Sure enough, within minutes we got to see a golden silhouette under the surface, with a shark popping up and giving us a lovely show as it came up again and again. We spent some time watching as these predators went about their usual business before setting our sights on Pearly Beach.

We moved though this area, having a look around to see if we had any Southern Right Whale pairs hanging about. After doing some searching, we concluded that they might be on the move, so we decided to head a little deeper out to sea to see if we could find any deep-water species. As we closed in on the island, Kira spotted a spout so we took a stop to see what would surface. To our surprise and joy, a Humpback Whale popped up. This was a sub adult Humpback Whale, and we got some lovely views of this gorgeous creature as he came right up to the boat. Unfortunately, he didn’t look to be doing all too well, with lots of whale lice. The whale was also quite pale, and even his breath sounded strained. After trying to get photographs of his condition, we took a close cruise behind Geyser Rock before going into Shark Alley for the real deal.

The alley is always a treat at this time of year, with our quirky Cape Fur Seals being as playful as ever. The island itself seemed busy, with seals getting into scuffles and pups running all over the place. Adults were taking a mid-morning nap and those who weren’t enjoying the comfort of the island were spending their time in the water.

Our last couple of stops were around Dyer Island, where we tried to spot the African Penguins and their homes on this 21 hectare stretch of land. We had spotted some penguins earlier on in the tour, but got some more good views just in front of their home before heading on back to Kleinbaai.