Daily Trip 29 November 2017

We had a lovely Tuesday watching some whales, admiring some seals and catching glimpses of penguins...

Written by Jax, November 30 2017

Daily Trip 29 November 2017

Guide Summary and Photographs

Holiday season is almost upon us here, with the warm days and clear skies bringing a smile to all of our faces. Our first trip this morning set out at 9:30, with the famous African sun beating down on us as we head out towards Pearly beach. Luckily, with the wind blowing, it wasn’t too warm out there and we ended up having a lovely tour.

We found our first Southern Right Whales to the east of Pearly Beach where we had a few cow, calf pairs. These guys were all quite close to the beach, which is pretty normal for our Right Whales as they are said to come up here due to our sheltered bays. We started off watching a pair travel slowly, waiting in anticipation for mom or calf to come up and give us a blow, which is warm air that has condensed into vapour after meeting the cooler atmospheric air. We then moved on to spend some time with a couple more pairs, with the occasional display of playful behaviour from one of the babies.

We head on over to Geyser Rock next where we got to see the seals enjoying the sunshine, with some trying to beat the heat by cooling off in the cold waters of the Atlantic. With the emergence of more and more pups, this is the time of ear where we start to see a few of them washing into the sea, which is a terrible sight as these little ones are not yet ready to swim. We had one such character on the trip today but, luckily, we were able to give the little one a second chance by getting him a little closer to the Island before we head off.

The last stop for this tour was Dyer Island, where we managed to spot our second little African Penguin of the trip in the water.

The second tour of the day had the same luck, with us having some awesome whales. Southern Rights are known to spy hop, which is when they stick their heads out the water and this is one of the coolest things that we get to see out there. On this trip, we had a mom who seemed to really enjoy herself, with her head popping up every few minutes or so for us. We also spent some time with a pair that came quite close to the boat, much to the delight of all on board. We also spent some time with our Cape Fur Seals before spotting some African Penguins making their way through Shark Alley. A brilliant question that came from this trip was “Would the penguins begin to burrow again should the guano layer return?”. The penguins do not appear to have lost the instinct and in areas where there is still enough substrate, they still manage to create burrows for themselves. Unfortunately, in most areas, their efforts are in vain due to the lack of gauno or soil around.

The last tour of the day launched just after lunch time, with us once again heading straight in the direction of Pearly Beach. In the last aerial survey done on these whales, we were said to have around 40 pairs left along our coastline, which is great for this time of year. We got to spend time with at least 5 pairs today and we’re really hoping that these guys are going to stick around a little longer. At one point during this tour, we had 2 pairs come together and it was absolutely awesome to watch as the 4 of them would take turns coming up. We took a stop by our seal colony next, with the very last stop being just in front of Dyer Island, where we admired the rustic beauty of this tiny stretch of land to the chorus on hundreds of Swift Terns.

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If you would like to get hold of your trip footage, please download the credit card authorization form here to complete and forward it through to bookings@whalewatchsa.com. Please be sure to mention the date and launching time with response. Our team will reply with a direct link to your video footage for download, please allow 72 hours to footage to be uploaded. Download link will be valid for 6 months.

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