Whale And Dolphin Watching,19 October

We enjoyed another remarkably calm and beautiful day out there today on our three whale watching tours. The first tour of the day was a particularly lucky one where we got to see all of the marine big five! Although we have all the animals in our area, the dolphins are the most difficult for us to see usually at this time of year. However, we were very lucky to come across a pod of bottlenose dolphins early in the tour, consisting of many calves. We also spent time with the southern right whales, saw penguins on Dyer Island, briefly saw a bronze whaler shark next to Slashfin and of course visited the ever present cape fur seals.

On the first two tours of the day we got to see brindle calf southern right whales, and on the second tour one brindle calf was a little active, lifting its little white tail out of the water. With only around 3.5% of southern right whale calves born brindle, it is always lovely to see these little, white whales.  We also had a lovely close approach on this tour by another, curious calf.

On the third tour the calves in the bay were quite active with lots of rolling around, pecs out of the water and three calves at different times lob-tailing (throwing their tails around). With a lot of social interaction between Mums and calves on this tour also, we had a great day out there.

The last two tours of the day also got to see African penguins on the water as well as the cape fur seals with their usual cacophony of sight, sound and smell!