Daily Trip 30 July 2018

Guide Summary and Photographs

The water was alive with whales today, with us spending some time around 3 groups of baleen whales. We also had some other interesting sights throughout the tour, including a seal who gave us an incredible show whilst enjoying his lunch!

We launched at 12:30 this afternoon due to tide and set out towards the white beaches of Franskraal hoping to spot some wildlife along the way. We did not have to travel too far to find our first couple of whales, who had been milling around in shallow water. From their flirty behavior, we assumed that this might be a mating group and so we watched as one followed the other, giving us the occasional view of the tips of their tails before disappearing below the surface for a bit.

The next pair that we caught up with was quite a special one, with us happening upon a mom and her baby. Once we realized that this was not just a single adult whale, we stopped the boat and let these animals slowly pass us. They were very relaxed and even came closer to our boat, with the curious little calf checking us out before heading off in the direction of the island with mom.

We then took a quick stop by Slashfin before heading towards the island ourselves. Just in front of Dyer Island, we noticed a seal being trailed by a flock of sea gulls. Much like vultures to a kill, gulls tend to stick around when they know there might be some food coming their way, which got us curious enough to have a closer look.

On inspection, we realized that this seal had caught himself a Stingray, which is not something we have seen on one of our tours before! Stingrays are a cartilaginous fish species and have super tough skin, so this seal had really met his match with this meal. He had to thrash it around repeatedly to break off bite size chunks, fending off the gulls and another pesky seal who was trying to score himself a bite. Once we had watched him eat his lunch, we spotted some African Penguins on Dyer island before cruising through shark alley.

On the way back into the harbor, we spotted another couple of spouts and decided to check them out. We had found something really special, realizing on approach that we had a breaching baby Humpback Whale. This little one was having a ball launching himself out the water, and we got to watch him do it again and again. This little dude had us all in awe as he came us and gave us some spectacular views of his little body. Mom and another Humpback where hanging around too, surfacing and moving gently as baby stole the show.

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