Whale Watching Tour,16 November 2018

It was a very busy day on the water today with five tours.

We spent time in the bay on all tours with one of two mother and calf pairs travelling in the bay today. The story with our lone calf also continues with it being sighted again in the bay hanging around with yet another mother and calf pair. It was unclear how much the other mother wanted the lone baby around as we saw her sometimes roll belly up. Could this be her way of stopping the lone calf trying to suckle? It is very hard to know as all the rolling around to us looks awesome and like whale ballet, but we are only getting such a small glimpse into the whales’ lives from the surface.

On two of the trips we got to see the marine big five, with a brief sighting of two Indian ocean humpback dolphins, mother and calf. These very rare dolphins sometimes grace us with their presence in the area.

We had a successful day seeing bronze whaler sharks over by our sister company today with sometimes more than one shark around the cage.

African penguins were also seen on every tour, either on the island when we visited sponge bay, or sitting in the water and the cape fur seals made up the five.

The last tour of the day was a very special trip where we got to take out a number of local children who had won awards with our Deep Blue Ambassadors programme. The kids had done drawings or written poems and were rewarded with a tour to see the whales and the seals. The kids seemed to have a wonderful time with huge smiles and a few screams at the waves! The African penguins also rewarded the children with the best sighting of the day for them when three adult penguins came close to the boat looking at us while we looked at them. This is always a very special day when we get to take these local children out to see what is in their waters and show them the incredible marine eco-system they live by.