A rainy, rewarding day cruising through the bay, 07 September 2018

After a day off sea, we set out at 10:00 with our first whale watching tour of the day. Although the storm has been and gone, we’re still getting patches of rain coming through, which caused us to bring out all of our waterproof gear in preparation for a wonderful day at sea. Armed with khaki wet weather pants and a brightly coloured orange jacket, we made our way down to Kleinbaai harbour. On our walk down, one can see the ocean and to our delight, we spotted our first whale of the day just outside of the harbour!

This was a cow, calf pair and we got to spend some time watching this playful baby do it’s thing. This was awesome to see as the animals were very relaxed, and we got a few close up views of the little guy as it gave us a once over. These where Southern Right Whales and we caught up with a few more of them later on in the tour but not before spotting a big raft of African Penguins in the water. These birds were taking advantage of a bait ball. Next up, we cruised through Shark Alley to view our Cape Fur Seals before heading behind the island to see what lay in wait for us there. We got super lucky, catching up with a group of Southern Rights but also two beautiful Humpback Whales who snuck up on us. We got to see a couple of tails here in deeper water before heading back to the harbour.

Trip two got to see some adult Southern Right Whales too, with some really relaxed individuals slowly travelling next to the boat. One whale also gave us some tail, giving us a side profile as it went to take a deeper dive. These whales came quite close to the boat, although nothing could beat an encounter we had later in the tour where a Southern Right came right up to the engines at the back of the vessel. We got a close encounter with this gentle giant before moving on to Geyser Rock where our seals lay in wait. We also spotted to juvenile African Penguins on our way to pick up our next group of clients.

Trip 3 started and finished off with lots of African Penguins, as we kept spotting some really large rafts as we travelled on through the bay. We also had some real quality time with 4 or 5 Southern Right Whales who were ambling along. This looked to be a mating group and it did look as though the males were trying to get in on some action, although their efforts did some a little half hearted. We got to see the whales surface through the swell and travel below us in the clear water which made for a beautiful sight. We went on towards the seals next where we spent some time watching as they got up to their usual funny business. This was our last stop for the day, with us heading back to port just before 5.