What our captain Dani saw through the binoculars on the Moroccan side of the Strait of Gibraltar, however, was something quite different. Shortly before noon, we spotted a small orange raft with two refugees.
Only one excursion today, but an extraordinary one. Directly in front of the harbor we meet a group of Bottlenose Dolphins. It is nice that there are also some young animals.
It is considered the heaviest bony fish in the world. It can reach a length of 3.30 metres and a weight of 2.3 tonnes. It is not only found here in the Strait of Gibraltar, but also in the Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean.
On 29 August 2022, the bulk carrier "OS35" carrying a cargo of steel bars for concrete construction collided with the anchored gas tanker "ADAM LNG" in the Bay of Gibraltar.
The Orca season lasted this year from the 25th of July to the 22nd of August. We were able to observe these beautiful black and white dolphins on eight days. From the end of July to the end of August we were able to observe Fin Whales on 14 days and on 20 trips.
Tarifa is literally embraced by the wind, which comes from two main directions with nice sounding names: Levante, or Poniente. In winter there is sometimes a cold north wind (especially at night and in the morning) or a south-west wind.
Watching a Fin Whale is always something very special, because you don't get to see this baleen whale very often. It is probably the rarest whale we see here in the Strait of Gibraltar out of all seven species.
We counted several hundred animals, mainly females with their calves. Among them we also discovered a newborn, which could only be a few days old, as one could clearly see the birth stripes.
On the 07th of May we observed three species of dolphins playing together. Even our two experts on board could not remember ever having observed anything like this.
