Daily Trip 30 September 2017

Guide Summary and Photographs

We had an Easterly wind blowing this morning as we set out towards Dyer Island. Of all the winds one can experience out at sea, the easterly is one of the best with it not being too cold or the type of wind which really eggs on the swell.

We found 2 shy Southern Right Whales en route but decided to move towards Pearly Beach in search of a mating group or two, stopping by Geyser Rock on the way. Here, we spent some time observing 60 000 of the finest pinnipeds that the world has on offer in the form of the Cape Fur Seal. These seals are “Ortariids” which means that they belong to the “Eared Seal” family. Something quite cool about all seals is that their mutual forefathers are most closely related to Bears.

Along the shores of Pearly Beach, we had quite a few Southern Right Whales making the most of the wind and swell around. We got to watch some awesome mating behaviour in the foreground with a super playful sub adult a little further off. This cheeky guy was partaking in some lob tailing. Lob Tailing is when these gentle giants beat their tail flukes against the water, creating a tremendous noise. After watching the whales play in the surf, we moved back towards Kleinbaai to collect our next group of clients.

On this trip, we stopped by our sister company, Marine Dynamics, in the hopes of showing our eager clients the oceans largest predatory shark. We were really lucky to have a Great White Shark on arrival, which is not always the case as these gorgeous animals are constantly on the move. We watched this animal swim around the back of the boat for a bit before we decided to go in search of our whales.

A mother and her calf were our first lucky find, with them moving in front of Dyer Island. We’re at that time of year where we’re starting to see slightly larger calves but, we still like to keep a really respectful distance from mom and her baby so we decided to go on over to Pearly beach. Here, after a slow start the sightings picked up really nicely, with a mating group around and a breach behind us in the distance.

The last trip of the day managed to spot 4 of the Marine Big 5 with a single Indian Ocean Humpback Dolphin off of Pearly Beach and a lovely, large raft of African Penguins in front of Dyer Island. We often find these rafts in the golden hours of the afternoon where these tiny torpedoes in tuxedos are home bound.

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