The Marine Big 5, 02 March 2018

Wow! Another amazing day out at sea. we have been so lucky these past few days, spotting Brydes Whales on nearly all of our tours. Today was no exception, although patience was a virtue with whale spotting being a little tricky, although we were finally rewarded at the end of our tour with a sighting of a whale just in front of Dyer Island.

We started off our tour with a different sort of whale, one of the toothy kind, when we set out from Kleinbaai harbor and happened upon Oupa, one our local Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphins. After getting a few close looks at this old guy, we took a stop at Slashfin where a few Copper Sharks were waiting to greet us. After a slightly slower week last week, we’re really thrilled to have had the activity pick up once again.

Once we’d checked out our favorite cartilaginous creatures, we head over the reef systems and into the deep sea, here, we spotted a variety of bird species including lots of African Penguins hanging out. We got to see both juveniles and adults, as well as Cape Gannets, which indicated that there was fish in the area. We searched the area for a while before heading off to Dyer Island, spotting a Giant Petrel or two along the way.

In Shark Alley, we spent some quality time with our Cape Fur Seal colony, watching as they jumped and played before making our way a little closer to Dyer Island. After this, began to make our way back to the harbour when Kira spotted a blow. We spent a while travelling about, searching for the next blow and any signs of the whale through the red tide bloom, with patience paying off as we got some lovely views of the whale before heading back for lunch.