Orcas - Day 4

Day 4 was a good day. No, day 4 was a very good day!

I had a swim before breakfast, which was our first at the hotel, and a very nice it was too. There was all sorts of bread, croissants, etc. as well as a large selection of fruit, yoghurts and even muffins. With a good meal inside us we left the hotel and headed into Tarifa to catch the boat which had been booked for 11. The weather forecast was right and the wind had dropped and the sea was calm.

As we walked to the pontoon with the sun beating down I said to Fran “I’ve got a feeling that this is going to be a good day”. The seven of us along with Pierre and the captain, José María Caballero (who looks like Ilie Nastase), set off just after 11, and headed out into the middle of the Straight of Gibraltar where we came across our first sighting before 11.30.

Just as on Saturday it was a group of bottlenose dolphins that we found first. They didn’t come up to the boat in the same way that they had previously, but there seemed to be more of them and they played happily around us. There was a very young one in the group that Pierre thought had just been born. We watched them tail slapping and jumping up into the air for about half an hour before we moved off.

We headed west, towards the Atlantic, where a small fleet of Spanish fisherman were doing their days work. The Orcas (Killer Whales) in the area tend to gather near the fishermen and try to grab the Blue Fin Tuna that they are fishing, so we hoped to find some nearby.

It took us about three quarters of an hour to reach the area where the fishermen were, and on the way we saw a flock of storks making their way to Africa. Apart from a few seabirds we saw little else on the way but we were told that the lack of Pilot Whales was a good sign as they tend not to be around when the Orcas are in the area.

At twenty to one, in the distance, we caught sight of a couple of fins briefly. They seemed quite large and it looked like a flash of white as well as black. We had seen our first Killer Whales! There were three groups in the area, one of 3, one of 5 and one of 9. We got closer and managed to get some great views of these magnificent creatures. It was the group of five that we were watching. They would come to the surface three or four times, then dive for about 5 minutes and we were watching all around us to see where they would come up again.

Fran was very good at spotting them when they resurfaced and was often the first to see them when they did. She was very excited. When we had been watching them for about 40 minutes, and at a time when they were diving and we were watching for them, we saw two smaller fins appear. This it turned out was a swordfish, and both fins were on the same animal.

The Orcas soon started heading off in a south-easterly direction. It turned out that there was a fleet of Moroccan fishermen out too, and so we followed the Orcas into Moroccan waters. These fishing boats were not much bigger than rowing boats and were manned by 3 to 5 men each with no nets or winch, just a line with which to catch the Tuna. The Orcas knew that snatching a meal from these guys would be easier than from the Spanish.

The Orcas moved amongst these boats and we followed them, just 3 miles from the coast now. Although we didn’t actually see them with any food, Pierre thinks that they may have got a Tuna from their behaviour. We hope so, as this may encourage them to come back for more tomorrow. Another boat turned up to watch them while we were there, along with a sport fishing boat looking for Tuna. We left them and headed back towards Spain and came across another group of 3 Orcas moving in amongst the Moroccan fishermen. We watched these for a short while until our time was up. We had been out for nearly 4 hours of which the last two were spent in the company of Killer Whales.

On our way back to port I mentioned to Pierre the fact that I had said to Fran that I’d had a feeling we were going to have a good day, and he said we were very lucky. They have a day like today maybe 4 times each summer. But it still wasn’t over. Just before the harbour we came across another small pod of dolphins moving west as we headed north across their path.

After returning to port we went to the Tarifa Eco Centre, one of the few restaurants still open at this time (most shops and things are closed between 2pm and 6pm then open again until late into the evening). We had a fantastic, and very filling pizza. After that we came back to the hotel and have swam, read, had a few snacks and generally relaxed.

I’m going across to the bar now to have a beer and see if I can post this. Tomorrow we are leaving port at 10, and if the day is half as good as today it will be great!