Daily Trip 12 March 2018

Guide Summary and Photographs

We set off from Kleinbaai harbour in touch of swell and wind but were filled with anticipation of what we might see today. Our first encounter was a larger Great White Shark in the Shallows, we had to wait a long time for the animal and moved on quickly as not to interfere with their operation. We then made the short voyage to Dyer Island to see say hello to our Cape Fur Seal Colony. On our way, we came across five giant petrels, we have to varieties of giant petrels, the northern and the southern. They can be hard to distinguish from one another at sea but up close the northern has red tip to the bill and the southern a green tip. As we made our way into Shark Alley we noticed that Geyser Rock was quite full today. The pups, juveniles and adults were as entertaining as ever, causing a commotion all over the place. At this time of year, the pups born just before the new year have started to swim, in turn these inexperience seals are the perfect bite size morsels for our larger Great Whites.

When we had enough of the boisterous seals, we journeyed behind the island where we came across thousands of birds. There were hundreds of adult and juvenile gannets everywhere diving into a very large bait ball, as well as many species of terns, cormorants, gulls and we even spotted quite a few white-chinned petrels. This massive bait ball can attract the largest of the Marine Big 5, the Bryde’s Whale, our only resident whale that hunts fish up and down our coasts. Fortunately, we spotted one if these massive creatures lunge feeding on the fish. However, as the waves were a bit up and down we found it tough to keep up with the animal but we still managed some excellent sightings. As we journeyed back to the harbour we had one last surprise, an arctic skua flew past. This was to be out last sighting of the day, managing 3 out the Marine Big 5 and some wonderful birds.

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