Daily Trip 30 November 2017
We had a super curious little calf on the first trip of the day…..
Written by Jax, November 30 2017

Guide Summary and Photographs
Today was a bittersweet day for us here at Dyer Island Cruises, with us saying goodbye to our good friend Judith who is leaving for home after spending 3 months out on Dream Catcher with us. Judith, who is what some might call a little “crazy” about whales, definitely went out with a bang when we had an awesome Southern Right Whale sighting on our first trip of the day, which happened to be her very last.
The trip launched at 10:00 and saw us heading towards the shallow waters close to the Uilenkraalsmond estuary to do our daily water reading. As we dropped the YSI, our snazzy water reading instrument, in the water, we were lucky to spot our first pair of Southern Rights. This was absolutely awesome as we have not spotted them in our own bay for a bit, with us generally having to travel all the way to Pearl Beach for some whale watching.
At first, these two kept really shallow, which meant that we watched from a distance for quite some time. After a while, the moved in a little closer, at which point the little whale became incredibly curious. Whale moms are very much their human counterparts in that they all have their own parenting style. Some mothers are completely comfortable with baby coming up to us whilst they keep their distance whilst others will attempt to gently guide baby away from the boat. Although this mom didn’t seem at all bothered by our presence, she did make some idle effort to guide the calf to where she wanted to go, to absolutely no avail.
Baby kept coming in to check us out, with the first approach being the closest when he popped up right under the back platforms of the boat. after this, baby moved on over to the other side of the boat with mom in tow, moving off a bit before coming back in for more. At this point, the mom seemed to resign to this fact and stayed at the surface next to us while baby had a look. This happened a couple more times to our absolute delight, with baby taking some time to roll around between approaches.
After this absolutely awesome sight, we made our way to Slashfin where we got a quick glimpse of a Bronze Whaler Shark before we spotted a few African Penguins in front of The Clyde Reef System. The last stop for this tour was our very own seal island, Geyser Rock, before we picked up our clients for the next tour.
The second tour of the day had a little more shark action with a few Bronze Whalers or Copper Sharks coming out to play. Where these cool dudes lack in reputation, they make up in the looks category with their golden skin, stunning green eyes and cute conical snout.
We spent some time with two mom calf whale pairs in Pearly Beach after this, with us watching intently as these majestic creatures came up for air. These whales were slowly travelling, perfectly illustrating why it was once easy to hunt them. We had a couple of young clients on board today who seemed to thoroughly enjoy the sight of these gigantic beauties, with thrills and squeals coming from excited faces.
Our Cape Fur Seal colony also got a bit of attention with us taking a stop here to admire the ever growing colony, with all the new babies emerging. After all of this excitement, Kleinbaai harbour was our next port of call.
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.
For more Whale facts and updates, also “Like” our Dyer Island Cruises Facebook fan page. If you would like to review your trip online to help others choose the right whale watching company, please visit our TripAdvisor page and leave your feedback