Text: Astrid Meyer
Photos: Astrid Meyer / Verena Schlick

Saturday, 16 August 2008 :

After our “firmm spirit” had passed its first “baptism by fire” and had successfully been in use for a week, we celebrated with a drink on a small scale. All of the firmm staff members and volunteers, as well as the 3 former firmm -captains, Antonio, Miguel and Juan, accompanied by their wives, gathered for an aperitif in our new port office last Saturday evening to celebrate the long-desired arrival of the new boat.

After a short historical retrospective by Katharina describing firmm’s evolution from the first Zodiac, the “Beluga” with its 18 seats, to the boat “foundation firmm” with 15 seats to the “firmm 1″ with 24 seats and finally to this observation boat, which was built according to our special needs and wishes, the celebrators headed to the new pontoon.

Here, the passengers can easily board without having to navigate any ladders and catwalks.
Once onboard, Katharina ceremonially baptized the youngest member of the “firmm-navy” with Andalusian Vino de Jerez, naming it “firmm spirit”.

Later on, all the guests went aboard and explored the accommodations and equipment. The former captains showed a particular interest in the equipment in the captain’s deck and in the engine compartment. The volunteers took pleasure in scaling the fly deck beyond the captain’s cabin, where normally only Jörn and Katharina station themselves to look for the animals.

The beautiful evening ended in the light of the full moon, in front of firmm’s new port office.

Text: Astrid Meyer (Volontärin bei firmm),
Photos: firmm

It was Thursday, August 14th 2008, and the final preparations were done. Our new boat, “firmm spirit”, launched on its first sighting trip with 45 passengers on board.
In addition to Katharina Heyer, the new crew was also aboard (from the left to the right): mechanic Diego, who has been a sailor for many years, captain Guillermo and sailor Eduardo.

From now on, firmm volunteers will also be on board to assist our passengers during every boat trip.

The boat, which has a capacity of up to 60 passengers, was built with special consideration of the whale watcher’s needs. Our 10 years of whale watching experience influenced the planning and building phase: because of its special construction, most of the seats in the open cabin are sheltered from the wind and water. Contrary to our boat “firmm 1″ with 24 seats, which is still in use, there are new rules on board: the new boat and passengers are no longer required to wear life jackets. Another special feature is that the boat’s railing is close to the water. Also, the bow and the stern offer much space so that the passengers can easily move. The boat’s interior is more spacious than it seems from outside, and this offers excellent opportunities to observe and photograph the animals.
The captain’s cabin is situated half a level higher than the boat deck, which allows the captain to easily track and respectfully accompany the animals. For the expert biologists who are aboard, a so called fly deck was installed beyond the captain’s cabin, which makes it easier to find the animals.
In addition to a toilet, you will also find the latest security and high-tech equipment on “firmm spirit”.
Not only were the passengers and the crew impressed by the new boat during our first trip out to sea, but even the pilot whales showed a different behavior! Normally, they remain indifferent toward the whale watchers, but on this first trip they came close to the boat several times.

Text: Katharina Heyer
Photos: firmm

The number of people who wish to see orcas is very high, and it is increasing every year.
We have known for several weeks that the Spanish fishermen from Tarifa are NOT catching tuna this year because the tuna quota from Spain is already exhausted as a result of the extensive tuna fishing with Almadraba nets last spring, and the government has decreed to halt their fishing.

Now it will be much more difficult to find the ORCAS this year if we now have to look for them along the whole Moroccan coast. Of course, it had been much easier also for the orcas to “serve themselves” close to the Spanish fishermen, beyond the submarine mountain. The orcas will now have to develop a new strategy - which these intelligent marine mammals will certainly do within a short time. How much time we humans will need to see through their strategy again is another question.
After Jörn accidentally discovered the orcas for the first time on July21, we began planning 3-hours ORCA excursions.

The fact that our competition did not find them in spite of extensive searching for hours was not really encouraging. But in spite of everything we went out towards the west on July26 with 3 guides aboard. We changed direction very close to the Moroccan coast going east with the current to the place we had seen them from time to time in the past few years. After a very short time we saw a high blow that couldn’t come from a pilot whale. Then, the dorsal fin of a large ORCA male appeared.

We could hardly believe that we had discovered them. Of course, there is always a lot of excitement aboard when we sight orcas. The 11 orcas we spotted contributed to an unforgettable experience.

The sighting chances were only about 50% at the beginning. Since then, we have seen them on several trips so that the chances of finding them are now about 98% as in previous years.

Text: Verena Schlick (firmm volunteer)

I was lucky to get a last-minute free spot on one of our boats on July 21st 2008. We had just left the harbour of Tarifa and were sailing into the direction of Morocco, when I suddenly noticed the first fins, one of them was about 2 meters high, and I shouted: “Finally they are here, the Orcas!!” But as quickly as we spotted them, they were gone again.

For weeks I had been telling people every day in my introductions that we were expecting the orcas, and now it was me that was spotting the orcas first! And even 11 orcas at once!!
They stayed under water for 5 to 6 minutes and we were looking around all the time, to see where they might show up again. Everybody on the boat was excited and curious who might be the next one spotting the orcas resurfacing.

Furthermore, we were lucky that all the other whale watching boats were already on their way home and we were the only ones watching the animals.
The opportunity to listen to an orca breathing - just a few meters away from the boat - is amazing. The atmosphere on the boat was magical and the calmness they exuded was indescribable.
This was one of the most memorable excursions for me and I am totally overwhelmed. It’s hard to describe what kind of impression those animals left on me…

Photos: Verena Schlick