Explore europe in a campervan

Besides the time when Shannon was here on holiday, we haven’t participated in any tourist excursions. Walking around Tarifa town we had noticed a few companies offering whale and dolphin watching trips, which we thought would be very interesting. So we paid our 27 euros each to go on a 2.5 hour boat trip with Whale Watch Tarifa On Thursday.

We met the Whale Watch Tarifa rep near a local bar and she walked us to the port where we met our guide and joined up with the other 50 people that were going on the trip. The boat was fairly large with 3 floors; one viewing deck on the top, a viewing deck with tables then a lower deck which was glass bottomed.

After around 30 minutes we were in the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Atlantic and Mediterranean sea meet. Many species of fish, dolphin, shark and whale either live or migrate through the Strait of Gibraltar.

Firstly we saw a pretty big school of bottlenose dolphins.  There must have been at least 30 of them and they all swam very gracefully in pairs.  They are the species of dolphin most commonly seen in sea-parks and dolphinariums, but it was fantastic to see them in their natural habitat.  Then the guide pointed out the blow of a sperm whale in the far distance, but the boat couldn’t close enough in time to see any more. As sperm whales spend most of their time at a depth of 3000 metres the opportunities to see them are limited.

Next we saw a school of pilot whales. Not quite as graceful as the bottlenose dolphins but still great to see. Finally to end the day we managed to see a sperm whale! Initially just its blow, then its’ back and then its’ massive tail as it dived back down to the bottom of the sea.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 7:54 pm and is filed under Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.