Dolphins all over the water and four very special surprises

Text: Lisa Bernegger, volunteer for firmm; photos: firmm

Thursday 18.10.2013 should have brought a nice and surprising change for all those involved. We had initially heard from fishermen that the last two days there were supposed to be Orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar. The news caused a flurry and this morning we wanted to go searching for them. For us volunteers who had only been here since the beginning of autumn, the Orcas normally weren’t in the Strait regularly any more, so this was especially exciting because we had not seen them yet and we were really looking forward to boarding the boat and heading out.

In the early morning it was Levante but during the day the wind was changing to Poniente. During these few hours when the wind changes, the ocean is really quiet and still, but in the beginning of the boat trip the view was bad and it was slightly foggy so that Katharina decided that under these circumstances it would be to difficult to find the Orcas. We turned around and drove into the usual area of the whales and the dolphins. Understandably we all were a bit disappointed at first, the hope to still see an orca after all had grown and now our hopes exploded like a soap bubble. But the disappointment did not last for long, because this trip ended up being everything else than ordinary. After a short time we heard the surprised and slightly nervous voice of Katharina through the loudspeakers who was telling us she’d sighted a Sperm whale blow.

The atmosphere immediately changed! Sperm whales? What? Nobody had expected that. The people looked at me slightly perplex with an asking look on their faces but I was as surprised as they were and anyway there was no time for explanations, we only heard “secure yourself” and the boat speeded up. But before we were close enough to see something the whale was already gone and had dived down. But it took only a few second to the next blow sighting and this time we were lucky.

  

We could watch the whale as it dove down and when he showed us its impressive tail fluke the people on the boat where just gasping. What followed was incredible. The weather had turned and the sun was shining and sparkling on the water as we saw striped dolphins. You had the feeling that they were trying to compete with the sperm whale and that they also wanted some of the fame. They were jumping high and they showed us their spectacular stunts. Then the bottlenose dolphins showed up, they came close to the boat as if they also wanted to be seen, but in that moment we spotted the next sperm whale and next to this huge animal the dolphins did not seam as impressing any more.

   

After the whale had disappeared, the passengers again focused their attention on the dolphins and everyone was already convinced they´s experienced a breathtaking tour, when we discovered a fourth sperm whale, who finally struck everybody speechless. It was a pregnant female sperm whale and we were driving parallel next to her, holding a prudent distance when she suddenly turned to us and came swimming towards us.

 

I believe that at this moment no one said a word, we just waited with excitement and the female was looking at us almost curiously, then she swam very close past the boat and disappeared. For a very beautiful finish we saw several pilot whales and the bottlenose dolphins again appeared. They decided to accompany us for a while as we drove back to Tarifa and to surf in the waves and leap into the air.

  

This trip really had a lot to offer. The animals were everywhere and you did not know in which direction to look, not to mention the four sperm whales we never expected to sight, which impressed and overwhelmed all of us.