2009.08.24 21:26:07

Administrator

Our website has been down for a couple of weeks recently so i could not write as often as i wanted to. So here is just a couple of bits and pieces from around the boat over the last couple of weeks.

Dolphins are back

first of all i was wrong about the dolphins! We do get quite a few around the boat now, which is nice to see obviously. Im still waiting for the perfect dolphin shot this season just yet.

here is a couple that come close =)









I especially like the last one: you can see air bubbles trailing along the side of the dolphin as he enters the water

Southern Right Whales:

We had a couple of Southern Right Whale sightings this season. During our trips we usually encounter Humpback Whales, but every once in a while ( maybe 5-10 times a season ) we also encounter Southern Right Whales

The are by far not as active as Humpback Whales, but stay on the surface for quite a bit. So it is even more special to see those guys jumping out of the water. And guess what happened to us? right! Jumping Southern Right Whales!



Last Year we had Southern Right Whales Jumping inside the Harbour, so i guess we are not doing to bad with the SRWs. If you are from Sydney you might remember the newspapers: They have been "playing" with surfers around Bondi / Tamarama.

What else?

Sometimes people on the boat approach me asking if im the one who is writing the blog here, so there must be people actually reading all of this =) If you are one of those people and planning to come out on the boat, just let me know or leave a comment here! its nice to get some feedback.

There also will be a couple of guest writers on this blog very shortly ( just putting pressure on those people now =)

Alex who is driving  Totally Wild , our small and fast boat, is keen to share his experience with us, something i cant tell you much about, because im usually on the big boat ( exept once, when i went out on it to get shots of OD II with whales in the foreground. i should actually write about that as well, because it went just awesomly well! )

2009.08.20 12:59:03

Administrator

On Tuesday we had a very rare Sighting of Orcas / Killer Whales. As far as i know that was the first sightings of killer whales on a whale watching boat around here in years.

We obviously have been very lucky that day especially when you bear in mind that they have been spotted behind the boat while we were going at full speed. We could have missed them very very easily. Im trying to remember who spotted those Ocras that day... who was it again... AH. it actually was me! =) Well, its all about being a team out there, covering 360° all around the boat. so i was just lucky to stand in the right spot at the right time.



We ended up watching 3 Orcas all up: 1 male ( massive straight dorsal fin, up to 2m long ) and 2 females ( shorter, curved dorsal ). They have been just cruising along, not being to active.

We also had a seal right next to the boat, which is an interesting fact, because Orcas like to eat seals! In order to hunt they use a form of sonar, called ecolocation, which is sending out beams of sound. They bounce of the environment giving them a very good idea of distance to their prey, speed and size. So what the seal was trying to do is hide close to our boat.

If the seal is in open water the sonar beams would give the orca a very clear image of the seal being there. In this case they bounce of our boat and the killer whales might be fooled.

Orcas actually use the same technique when they are trying to get closer to their prey. Whales for example can hear very good and could sense orcas for miles and miles away. By shadowing a boat the noise of it would overlap any sound coming from an orca. Very sneaky those killer whales!

2009.08.20 12:28:34

Administrator

Im not to sure if im right, but there seems to be less dolphins around the coast of Sydney than last season. We used to have quite a number of dolphins on most of our trips ( maybe 50% or so )

The number of dolphin sightings this season is actually picking up: we had quite a few sightings over the last couple of weeks. So maybe im wrong and there havent been much dolphins at the beginning of last season either, I just dont remember anymore?

But what i do know for a fact is that the dolphins dont hang around the boat as much as they used to in the last season. Im pretty sure the reason for that is our new boat Ocean Dreaming 2. Ocean Dreaming 1 was a slightly bigger boat, producing a bigger pressure wave than OD II. Dolphins love to ride those pressure waves because it gives them a free ride. The pressure wave of OD II must be fairly weak because the dolphins maybe join us for a couple of seconds but then lose interest fairly quickly.

So far i did not manage to get amazing dolphin pictures ( which is very annoying =)  the main reason for that would be that they just dont hang around the boat as much. Last year i could wait at the front of the boat looking back for the dolphins to jump towards the camera in our wake. That still does happen but not as often, so i have not been lucky just yet. Sometimes they randomly jump somewhere close to the boat, but that is very unpredictable and hard to get with a big zoom lens because it happens to quickly.

There is some dolphin pictures this season, but just not quite what i consider a perfect shot, there you go: