After an extensive search we found 200 Bottlenose Dolphins that moved westwards and took their time to enjoy themselves around our boat. What a show with Spyhopping and Tailslapping, giant jumps in the distance and in front of the boat as well - and all this with a unique sunset! However, the high point of the tour had not come yet: on our way back to the port, at the same level as Tarifa Trafico, only about 2 km from Tarifa: 2 giant blows of 2 mighty fin whales that were swimming slowly towards the Atlantic Ocean. Their water-jets were mighty, white like snow they were shining in the shimmering sunlight. All passengers on board, even the children that used to scream and cheer before, suddenly became awesomly quiet.
To see these giants peacefully in the sunset was an experience we will never forget.

Today we saw a lot of mothers with their new born babies! We met all 3 kinds of dolphins and the pilot whale mother on one single trip and all of them had their new born babies with them!
Photo 1 + 2: bottlenose dolphin Photo 3: pilot whale, photo 4: striped dolphin and photo 5: common dolphin.
It feels good to witness the continuous amount of offspring in spite of all the injured and diseased animals we had in the recent past.

Text: Katharina Heyer / firmm

I have never seen a marine mammal with such a strange “ulcer”. First it made me think of “pocks” like we know them from the humpback whales and the grey whales. However, from the photos we understand that it is something more or less soft, like a tumor. I have sent the photos to Kimberly Grobholz who is the owner of a practice in Munich for natural therapy of animals. She assumes that this phenomenon is due to extreme environment pollution. She knows this problem from the marine fauna in general.

Text: Jörn / firmm

We left the port and turned towards Tanger. However, just before we reached the position where we normally meet the pilot whales and the bottlenose dolphins, I saw the blow of a sperm whale from the corner of my eye. He was about one mile from our boat and dove after a short time. I thought that it was a shame that we didn’t notice him earlier which would have enabled us to watch him for a longer time, as we hadn’t seen a sperm whale for about a week. We continued driving and suddenly saw 3 pilot whales. Far and wide there was nothing else to see, but this turned out to be good. In addition, 9 sperm whales appeared. It looked like water-jets had been turned on close by. So we had to go from one to the other, depending on the distance, sometimes even having to hurry. Therefore we were glad that there were no other animals around. It is always a pity when we have to leave a group of bottlenose dolphins that are playing right in front of the boat. Sometimes it is not even possible to leave because the animals swim too close around the boat - unless one has no scruples and zooms away recklessly. Among the sperm whales there was also a juvenile. I don’t think that there were 10 different animals. It rather looked like some of them appeared several times. I think there were about 5 to 8 animals. Last year on our June 19th boat trip we had very similar sightings with 8 sperm whales in total. So this is a new record!

During our next trip we only saw one sperm whale, and since then no group like that again!

Text: Katharina Heyer

If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it.
When I was walking to the castle today between 10.00 and 10.30 a.m. I had my field-glasses with me (unfortunately I´d forgotten my camera) to check the waves after the strong Levante, because the next trip after 4 days of wind would be taking place at 12:00. When I reached the lookout point I heard a loud detonation that totally frightened me. An old woman next to me cried out loud “”los moros”, the Moroccans are shooting!”
I couldn’t believe that, because the noise came from the cliff-lined coast on the Spanish side. And after that there was another explosion. This time I could see from which direction the projectiles were coming, and at the same time I saw 3 huge impacts outside in the Strait of Gibraltar with water-jets of an enormous altitude quite well with my field-glasses. In the front - not far away from the line of fire - there was a fishing boat going towards Tarifa harbor. Except for the one boat there were no others outside. A short time later I heard a 3rd and 4th deafening bang. I could see more and more impacts, and finally there were 5 huge water-jets, all of them in direction of the new Moroccan harbor “Tanger MED”, which is located in the middle of the Strait of Gibraltar. There the width of the Strait is just 14km and near the impacts we recently saw 3 Sperm Whales, as well as the schools of Pilot Whales with all their calves that we observed just 2-3 km away from the impacts. A concentration of the marine mammals that live here is located in an area of 3-4 km around the impacts. I got sick while thinking of the animals and how they probably got scared to death when, even on land, it was such a deafening noise. Furthermore, the coastal area has been declared now for a while as a nature reserve, about which we were very pleased.
How is it possible that the military can operate the manoeuvres here of all places, although everybody knows that it’s the habitat of many cetaceans?!
It’s just unbelievable how recklessly the military can act!!!

Photo: Aurelio Morales

Photo: Photomontage