Chasing video footage.

Escort with calf rolling and mother rolling in the foreground.(Darren Craig)

There was a bit of a stormy patch on Monday so it was relaxing day off. Even though the forecast didn’t look great for Tuesday, we took a chance and it paid off. In the morning we set out to get some film footage for Ken O’Sullivans Sea Fever Productions. We stumbled onto a single animal who breached about 10 metres away from our boat. It was a bit of a surprise considering we were only speculating a faint blow in the area. Another two breaches and the animal was gone, very crafty.

 After getting a little tip from the whale watching boat, we got onto a mother and calf just west of the harbour entrance. We tried to get close to them but, alas, they were being evasive and soon darted off west (at least that where we think they went).

Following a spot of lunch, we set out from the harbour. Within about one and a half minutes we spotted a blow. This is great; the whales are starting to come to us now. We followed this mother, calf and escort south into Sal Rei Bay. The whales didn’t seem to bothered by our boat so we sneaked up on them and Ken slipped into the water to attempt some underwater footage. The pod stuck around the same area sub-surface for quite a while so there may have been a possibility of mating occurring. Or maybe they were just hugging, who knows?

Calf fluke. (Darren Craig

Lobtailing male. (Darren Craig)

This morning was another rough day on the water. We were lucky enough to see a couple of adults lob-tailing a number of times over approx. 30 minutes. It was difficult trying to get pictures and video footage as the weather was worsening and there was water splashing everywhere. We called it a day at lunch-time as the swell had picked up to 3 metres and the sea state was hitting a 5.

Upon our return to natura today, we were greeted by an adult red-billed tropic bird, in a cardboard box! Someone had saved the bird from being eaten and had dropped it into the office. We are off to the beach now to release it.