Daily Trip 13 June 2018

Guide Summary and Photographs

We had another fantastic day out on the ocean, spotting 4 of the Marine Big 5 as well as some other cool creatures. Today was the last sea day for a while, with a large frontal system hitting the ground tomorrow, but today’s sea conditions were definitely the calm before the storm.

After doing our trip briefing up at the great White House, we set out on a picture perfect sea, hugging the coast to Uilenkraalsmond where we took a brief stop to do a bit of research on the water conditions. After this, we head off in search of South Africa’s rarest coastal cetacean and struck gold when we stumbled upon a lone Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphin. This little guy was super active, breaching and slapping his tail against the surface of the water before disappearing in between what little swell we had.

It’s not everyday we’re given such a performance, so we had an awesome time watching him before moving over to the shark cage diving vessels, who were a little quiet today. Great Whites are known to be highly migratory creatures, travelling vast distances which can span thousands of kilometres.

We stuck around for a few moments before heading over towards The Clyde reef system, which is home to an extensive Kelp forest. Kelp is an integral part of the Greater Dyer Island eco system, so we found a detached specimen and had a bit of fun passing it around before moving over in to Pearly Beach.

On our way, we spotted one of natures great wonders, a Sunfish. These strange looking creatures can be found snacking on Jellyfish in our waters. These bony fish can way over a ton and have been known to carry around 54 species of parasites, which can be a bit of a pain. Sometimes, this results in them breaching in an attempt to remove the little guys, which is something we also believe to be true for our whales.

Once we’d watched him surface a few times, we cruised along this beautiful stretch of coastline in search of whales, but met up with a few African Penguins first. This little black and white guys were a little skittish at first, but warmed up to us pretty quickly, giving us a nice view or two before carrying on with their day.

A few moments later, we found what we were hoping for when a spout erupted from the ocean. We had come across a very relaxed Brydes Whale, and had an incredible time watching him as he moved with the boat, creating whale footprints only metres a way and giving us a beautiful show when he did surface.

Our last port of call was with our ever playful Cape Fur Seals, who we watched with glee before returning to Kleinbaai Harbour.