Daily Trip 25 October 2017

Guide Summary and Photographs

We had a whale of a time out on a slightly swell-y sea today. Swell is driven by prevailing wind and provides some exciting action when we’re in shallow water, with these soon to be waves creating the awesome sensation of butterflies in all of us as we cruise over them. Today, we also had some water from above with some much needed rain gracing us all throughout our trips. This meant bringing out the ol’ khaki waterproofs and having an awesome adventure out on Dream Catcher.

The very first trip of the day started early and saw us heading towards Uilenkraalsmond, where we found all of our whales today. In this region, we’re watching Southern Rights who are enjoying our warm waters, which are far more protected from wind and swell than their home in the sub Antarctic’s. It was around the time of our first sighting that it started to rain, and this ended up carrying on all throughout the day! We watched a couple of mothers and calves in this area before heading on towards Slashfin. We’ve been having great stops here recently with Great Whites coming up for the bait as we lay in weight. After watching Alfred, our expert bait handler, gently draw the bait past the cage, with the shark just behind, we moved onwards towards Dyer Island where we got to see our endemic Cape Fur Seals. We were also lucky to have a little African Penguin on this tour.

The second trip was also rainy but that did not dampen our spirits as we set out in search of some whales. We did not have to search too far to find 4 mother calf pairs spending some quality time close to shore. With whales all around, we had a fantastic time watching them come to the surface to take the occasional breath. We also had a couple of active animals in the breakers, with the tips of some tail flukes popping up every so often. We also took a stop by our sister company on this trip where we got to watch another White Shark showcase its curiosity by investigating the bait and also trying to find the source of the scent trail creating by the chum.

Trip 3 had a gorgeous approach from a super inquisitive Southern Right Whale which popped up right next to the boat, rolling over onto its side to get a better look at what we were doing. With this friendly behaviour, it is no wonder that this majestic species was decimated during the whaling days. after this, we made our way into Shark Ally where we got to spend some quality time with the ocean equivalent to man’s best friend, the Cape Fur Seal. We also spotted a little African Penguin on the way back into the harbour.

Our final tour for the day really struck gold when we came across a particularly boisterous little calf, who was very interested in us.  We had seen this little one briefly on an earlier trip, with him being easy to recognize due to the white speckles on his back. This baby could not get enough of us, approaching the boat several times to the absolute delight of us all. After a great 5 minutes, mom popped up next to him, presumably to fetch this cutie so that they could be on their way. as if this was not enough, we also got a good view breaches from this little dude a little earlier on in the tour.

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