Whale Diary

12:00 - After strong winds yesterday, there was still some swell in the bay but this made our first tour of the day all the more exciting! As we headed out past the islands, we started to see more and more seabirds which was a great sign already that there was plenty of fish in the sea. We sailed towards the area with many plunge diving gannets and as we approached saw some blows. It took us a few minutes to locate the source of these blows amongst the waves but when we did we saw it was at least 2 minke whales. They were definitely feeding underneath the active birds so were a little difficult to keep track of. After a while we decided to move on to a new area as we had seen some larger blows in the distance. When we arrived we found a humpback whale! This individual was easier to follow than the minkes and we were able to watch some wonderful fluke dives. After staying with this whale for a while we started to run out of time and slowly had to make a move towards the harbour, but the bay wasn't done with us yet! Just after we turned around we spotted two more blows not very far away and found another 2 humpback whales swimming together! When we got closer to this pair, they decided to turn towards us and swim just underneath our boat! It was incredible to see them so close! They surfaced again on our other side and showed off their large tail fins as a last goodbye before we really had to go home to the harbour.

Crew: Captain Miquel & Guide Emily

14:00 - We bundled up and headed out into the bay, excited to see who was out there. It was a bit of a wet and wild ride out but totally worth it when we spotted not one, but two blows in the distance! When we went to investigate, we came up to two humpback whales! It is always special when we can find a pair of humpbacks feeding together. These two humpbacks seemed to be as curious about us as we were about them; because they came very close to give us a bit of a "boat inspection". One then even did a little spy hop for us which was amazing. They were spending a lot of time at the surface, and we could even track them by following their white pectoral fins through the water. After multiple surfaces, we were then treated to a double fluke dive! As we awaited their return, we had Northern gannets plunge diving around the water. After our humpbacks resurfaced, they were still very close and curious. After multiple surface sequences, we had another great double fluke. At this point it was time to wave our whales goodbye and head back to port, what a great tour!

Crew: Captain David & Guide Sam

15:00 - We headed out onto a sunny but windy bay, with the waves having calmed down significantly since noon. Our first sighting was a pair of humpback whales, that were behaving rather calmly near the surface, moving very slowly, barely making any headway, coming up for frequent breaths. We spent a good while admiring these two as they relaxed just beneath the surface of the waves. We did see 2-3 sneaky minke whales making brief appearances nearby as well, and decided to head over towards one of them to get a closer look, which we most certainly did, as one of them surfaced mere meters from our boat! A lovely encounter with a normally rather shy species. We then headed towards another larger blow, the third humpback of the tour, which treated us to some spectacular behaviours. Not only did we get to see the classic fluke dive, but we got to see a head slap as well as a perfect complete breach with a 360 degree twist! Quite unexpected, and incredibly special! As we were waiting for this showboater to surface again, we were caught under a massive quite the downpour, and decided to head for the harbour.

Crew: Captain Miquel & Guide Orsolya