Daily Trip 09 September 2017
After having been land bound for 2 days, it was great to get back out there today with two trips, both of which had some gorgeous whales!
Written by Jax, September 9 2017
Guide Summary and Photographs
Our first trip launched out of Gansbaai harbour today, due to the recent full moon which is still fiddling around with our tides. As a crew, we always enjoy the extra miles as this allows for us to cover a little more distance, moving along the rugged cliffs of Walker Bay. Whilst cruising, we stopped to pick up a few pieces of plastic, left carelessly to pollute our oceans.
Plastic kills thousands of marine animals every year and we’re really passionate about leaving our oceans a little cleaner that what we find them. In addition to picking up litter floating in the ocean, we also do regular beach clean ups with one coming up on the 16th of September, in honour of International Coastal Clean Up Day. If you’d like to get involved, join our Facebook event here.
After we’d circumnavigated Danger Point, it became really clear that we’ve got some fish moving through the area, due to the abundance of Cape gannets gracing our skies. These majestic seabirds are referred to as “Malgasse” in Afrikaans. With “mal” referring to the madness that is plummeting into the ocean at speeds of up to 60km/h. The fish also attracted a shy Brydes Whale which we got to see briefly before it moved off in the same direction as the birds.
A stop at Geyser Rock was next on our agenda and we spent some time watching some boisterous individuals hurdle themselves out the water. Following this we head to Pearly beach where we had Southern Right Whales galore which including some Flipper slapping. This is always a speculator thing to witness and to hear, as two tonnes comes crashing down on the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Although our sister company had gone in for a change over, we still managed to see a stunning White Shark in the shallows, a 3m nameless female that arrived at our sister company’s boat a little later on. We started our second trip here, at Slashfin, where one White Shark decided that it would put on a fantastic show for divers and whale watchers a like! We watched this beauty launch itself out the water a few times, with a Bronze Whaler at the bait to keep us entertained every time this large predator went a little deeper.
The whales on the second trip were breath taking, with one whale almost bumping the boat it came up in such close proximity. Although their eyesight is pretty much like ours – which is not that great – they know that we’re around due to our engines giving off some noise, so it is their choice to come in for a squiz. Their child like curiosity is probably one of the most captivating things about this majestic species, with all of us left in awe of this interaction. We watched the whales for another few minutes after this and with mating groups all around it was difficult to decide which ones to keep our eyes on.
A stop at the seals and a couple of African Penguins later, we found ourselves back in the harbour after a successful day at sea.
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.
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