Sardine Run starts with a Bang
By Lloyd Edwards

I guess it is something that we always fear and try our level best to avoid during the last 23 years. When a whale hits a whale watching boat, there can always be damage. This time we were extremely lucky.

 

Our day started off with around 200 bottlenose dolphins outside the harbour. We found another school half way to St Croix, another hundred just leaving the islands and then around 400 in Lover’s Lane. Four schools in one day is just so rewarding for the clients. One of the other operators told us there were bait balls all over the bay in a line between St Croix Island and Cape Recife. We soon located a school of around 600 common dolphins. We were following parallel to them keeping our distance when all of a sardine the dolphins turned in front of the boat. We could see them eating sardines that were being chased under the boat. We immediately put the outboards into neutral but left them running. This allows whales to still be able to hear us.

 

I was filming from the platform on top of the cabin when all of a sudden it felt like we had been hit by another boat. Then next minute this Bryde’s whale came breaching out of the water above my eye level. I have never seen a lunge feed so high out of the water! The whale was not injured at all and swam off to carry on feeding.