Daily Trip 01 February 2018

Guide Summary and Photographs

Although our company focuses mainly on our ocean and the animals that dwell there in, we would not be doing Mother Nature justice if we didn’t chat a bit about some of world’s most awesome phenomena, such as the occurrence of a blue moon! We’ve all heard the saying, “once in a blue moon” which means that an event or an occurrence is a rarity. This saying is derived from the fact that it is pretty uncommon to have two full moons in one month, which makes it super cool that January 2018 just happened to be one of them. Yesterday, not only was it a blue moon, it was a super blue moon and some lucky nations were even able to witness a lunar eclipse.

If you happened to look up at the night sky last night and think that the moon was looking a little larger than normal, your eyes were not deceiving you. A super moon means that the moon is as close to the earth as it comes, which makes for a beautiful, bright sight. If you’d like to see for yourself,  I’ve attached a pic below from the super moon that occurred earlier on in January

If you’re wondering how this all ties into today’s blog, our trips are very much effected by the phases of the moon as full and new moon bring with them the occurrence of spring tide. The moon has quite a strong gravitational pull at these times, which makes our high water higher than it would be on average and, our low water quite low indeed. With a tidal difference of around 2m in our area, this affects our launching times, as our boat is sometimes a little too big to get out of our shallow harbour. Today, this meant that we would only head out to sea at 12:30.

Once we had launched out of Kleinbaai, we moved through the bay, enjoying the scenery and keeping our eyes peeled in the hopes of finding some wildlife. After our cruise through the shallows, we took a quick stop in the area where we offer shark cage diving but, unfortunately, these cartilaginous fellows were a bit on the elusive side today. We decided to head towards Dyer Island after this, in the hopes of seeing a few cool sea birds.

On the way, we picked up some sea bamboo which had detached from the shallow waters of The Clyde Reef System. Did you know that it can take this kelp up to 2 years to reach its full height of around 12m? After passing around the leaves, which a few on board found to be an enjoyable snack, we made our way into Sponge Bay to have a closer look at Dyer Island.

Geyser Rock was the next port of call where the seals were chilling in all of their splendour. The seals are one of very few creatures that stay in the area throughout the year, although most of the males are spending the majority of their lives out in the open ocean. The seals were very playful today, leaping out the water to the delight of all on board. Marine mammals love to play and playing actually serves an important purpose for all animals as this teaches them important life skills.

After we had some fun checking them out, we moved into the deep sea and then slowly back to the harbour.

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.For more Whale facts and updates, also “Like” our Dyer Island Cruises Facebook fan page. If you would like to review your trip online to help others choose the right whale watching company, please visit our TripAdvisor page and leave your feedback