Humpback Southern Migration in Full Swing!
By Lloyd Edwards

1. News

We saw the first Humpbacks on their Northern migration during the "Welcoming of the Whales Festival" held at Willows Resort in early June. Now that they have mated and given birth to their calves off East Africa, they are heading back to their feeding grounds in the Southern Oceans.

Yesterday the Raggy Charters crew set off with learners from the Theodore Herzl High School in Port Elizabeth. First up were a school of 150 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, courtesy of our PE cetacean spotters. They keep an eye on Algoa Bay for us from their beachfront apartments. We were heading towards Cape Recife when Purity's excited voice came over the radio telling us of a school of around 1000 Long-beaked common dolphins. They were chasing bait fish towards the point while being pursued by countless Cape gannets. We followed them for our allotted 20 minutes and then turned towards some massive splashes further out to sea.

Here we came across at least four Humpback whale cow and calf pairs. They didn't seem to be in a hurry and entertained us to tail slapping, head lunges and some incredible breaches. The animal in the images was a really big female of around 40 tons. It was spellbinding to watch these massive animals breach time and again, much to the delight of all aboard.

We wish the cow and calf pairs a safe 2000 km journey back to their feeding grounds. This will be the first time the exhausted cow will be able to feed again. They face many dangers along the way including ship strikes, entanglements in fishing gear, ingestion of plastic and of course attacks by lurking killer whales.

For more information on the Humpback Whale Migration click here.