Albatross and Whales

This morning Dave and I went on the Albatross Encounter tour. We went out in a smallish boat to the edge of the continental shelf (which is pretty close here - the reason for a lot of the marine life being around) and saw huge numbers of albatross. There was Dave and I, just generally interested adults, a couple of young boys and their father, just out for the boat ride and the big birds, and 6 others who were "birders" and were just about orgasmic over the experience. We saw a Southern Royal Albaross, 3 kinds of Wandering Albatross, and 2 other albatross (Salvin's and Buller's - the Buller's caused a great deal of excitement on the boat). The photo above has Salvin's albatross on the left, and Gibson's Wandering Albatross on the right. We had as much fun watching the other passengers as we did watching the albatross. We also saw 3 kinds of petrels, 3 kinds of shearwaters, 2 kinds of shags and 2 kinds of gulls, terns, gannet, and 2 blue penguins. I know all this because we were given a list with all the birds we saw, and the numbers thereof. It was a lifetime wonderful experience if you were a birder, I guess. We found it quite entertaining - the albatross are huge, and they growled when warning the others off their food - I never knew birds could growl! The big dark birds are Giant Northern petrels.

I also found boarding and disembarking the boat to be quite unusual. We went up a step-ladder and boarded the boat on a boat trailer while still on land, then were backed into the sea. When we came back the boat drove back on the boat trailer, was dragged out of the water, and we disembarked down the same steps.

We then had lunch, and I went on the whale watching tour, and Dave went golfing again. Dave and I had been whale watching the last time we were here, but my camera battery died just before the whale dived so I never got a photo of his tail. I now always carry a back-up camera battery and so have never been deprived of such a chance again. But I had to re-do the whale watching tour to see the sperm whale dive again, and this time I captured a photo of him. Top photo he has just lifted his tail out of the ocean, thus water dripping off, and bottom photo he's started his dive.

After the whale we went to see the dusky dophins frolic in the ocean. They frolic quickly, so are rather difficult to get a picture of, but I managed a couple.

All in all I had a wonderful afternoon. And Dave's round of golf was an improvement over yesterday. So we both had a good afternoon. And the day was bright and sunny and the ocean was calm as could be. We have been lucky so far with the weather. Hope it keeps up.