Daily Trip 02 December 2017

Guide Summary and Photographs

We only had one trip out on the ocean today with the wind set to pick up at around 1 O’ clock, so we launched at 10:00 and made our way out towards the Uilenkraalsmond estuary to see if any of our aquatic friends were about.

At this time of year, one can see many holiday makers enjoying their long anticipated break, with young and old flocking to the beach to catch some sun and surf. This is also the time of year where our White Sharks can be found in the shallows, where we have sighted them in water around 1.5m deep. We’re very proud to day that issues between humans and sharks here are really few and far between, despite the fact that we have both in abundance over the December period.

Here, we also find our Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphins and we were really lucky to catch up with a pod of 4 today. These Dolphins also frequent the shallow waters and are not generally found at depths of more than 50m. We spent some time admiring them as they came up for air before we made our way along the coast towards our sister company, Marine Dynamics.

Here, we got to stay a while, waiting patiently to catch a glimpse of a shark or two. Whilst here, we were lucky enough to see 2 Bronze Whaler or Copper Sharks around the bait. These two stayed towards the back of the boat but we did manage to get a good few views of them as they came up to investigate what was at the surface. Some good news from the cage diving side, Mini nemo, one of our favourite White Sharks, was spotted on both tours today. We get to see this gimpy-finned beauty quite a lot throughout the year as far as sharks go, but we’re always excited when he makes his return.

Onto our whales, we had some lovely sightings over at Pearly Beach where we had 3 mom calf pairs hanging around. These guys are the last of the moms and calves and we’re really glad that they’ve chosen to keep us company just a little while longer. We had whales in all directions at one point during the two, with a pair on both sides and one at the front. All of the pairs were slowly travelling, but we did have a baby tease us with the tip of his tail before we decided it was time to visit our seals.

The island was packed to the brink today with thousands and thousands of seals lounging in the sun whilst some of their island mates played around a bit in the water. The water temperature has dropped quite a bit lately, which is pretty normal for our summer months when we have a process known as upwelling occur.

Dyer Island was today’s last stop, with us checking out a couple of African Penguins before heading on home.

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