It was a quiet day in our blue office today, heading out to calm seas and calm skies the canyon made us work hard to find anything. Life out there is so dynamic and every day is different, you never know what you’re going to see. The first thing we did see however was a sunfish. Sunfish are often seen on our voyages early in the year during the summer months January and February. The sunfish swam across our bow and gave our passengers a great view of his body and dorsal fin. The surface area on the sunfish’s body is so large it can host up to 40 parasites. To eliminate these parasites the sunfish will turn side on, lying flat on the surface to attract birds to land on them and feast on their unwanted ocean fleas. They have even been known to breach up 10ft into the air and smack back on the surface in an effort to relive themselves of their parasites.Over the course of the day we travelled back and forth through the canyon searching for birds, blows and oil slicks but were unable to find anything, until we came across a second sunfish. We watched as the sunfish made its way through the water slowly passing our starboard side in search of jellyfish while the wind picked up and whitecaps slowly started appearing on the surface. Having not seen any Orca all day we held on to the last hope we had of spotting them, and that we did.On our last lap past the hotspot we found them and not just one pod but 3. Finally, we were spoilt for choice of Orca! We picked the closed pod and manoeuvred over to them. Even though they were one of the more relaxed pods, surfacing every few minutes the exhibitioners on board were delighted to finally see our apex predator. After a few close passes and clicks of our cameras we made our way back out of the canyon and into the harbour.
Until tomorrow
Naturaliste Charters
