Daily Trip 07 November 2017

Guide Summary and Photographs

It was a quiet day for us here at Dyer Island Cruises with only 2 trips on the sea. We’ve got a South Easterly blowing at the moment, which is causing our water temperatures to drop a degree or two. Spring tide is also lingering a little longer than one would expect, which caused our second trip of the day to have to go back into Gansbaai harbour.

The first trip of the day launched bright and early this morning around 7:30, with less wind than expected, which is always great. We moved on towards Uilenkraalsmond, hugging the coast and admiring the scenic little suburb of Franskraal before finding some whales just behind the breakers. Our first mom and calf pair for the day where lovely and relaxed, moving slowly through the area and giving us some lovely close looks. This baby has been drinking hundreds of litres of milk a day and will reach a size of around 8m here in our waters before heading on down to the feeding grounds.

After having an awesome time watching these beautiful specimens, we move onwards towards Dyer Island where we had a look at our Cape Fur Seal colony. On this trip, we had very few seals in the water since it was a little chilly. Cape Fur Seals get their name from their double layer of fur which protects them from the cold waters of the Atlantic. These seals also have a thick layer of blubber and the combination of the two means that they often overheat.  This causes them to take to the water, exposing their blood vessel-rich flippers to the wind, which causes the entire body of the seal to cool down, on days where it’s a little chilly we often see less seals indulging in this practice.

Our 2^nd trip of the day launched just a while before the tide cased the water to run out. We followed the same route, moving into shallow water where we found 2 mom and calf pairs hanging around in the swell.  The first pair were moving slowly towards The Clyde reef system, and we stayed with them for a bit, waiting in anticipation for a glimpse of the whit callosities under the water, which is indicative of the whales coming up to take a breath.

The second pair got super cute half way through our time with them when mom rolled onto her back, exposing her belly to the surface. Baby then took it upon itself to get onto mom, laying on her chest between her giant pectoral flippers.

After this stunning sight, we moved towards Slashfin where we were able to see a Bronze Whaler moving through the water column. Although this guy was travelling a little deeper, we were still able to get a glimpse of that gorgeous copper colour skin.

Geyser Rock was the very last stop of the day where we spent some time watching he Cape Fur Seals fool about in the water. The scene had changed dramatically from our last visit with hundreds of the little and not so little guys having a swim.

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