News & sightings

What an amazing sight to see — a pod of dolphins racing our boat at full speed! These dolphins love to play and interact with us.

Duiker Island was once covered in Cape cormorants, which in Afrikaans are called duikers — and that is where the island originally got its name. Today you’ll still see plenty of bird life, but the main inhabitant is now the Cape fur seal. Hout Bay’s Duiker Island has an endemic population of thousands of seals, and watching them perched and sunbathing on the rocks is a sight to behold. In the water around the island there’s constant activity, with playful seals swimming and feeding.

Male seals are much bigger than the females. They carry a thick layer of blubber under two coats of fur — a thick outer layer and a thin inner layer, which is where the name “fur seal” comes from. It’s also how they withstand the cold Atlantic temperatures.

It started with some land-based whale spotting around 9am at a special spot on Chapman’s Peak Drive. Alex Vogel, citizen scientist and developer of the Seafari app, and Dani Abras, a visiting marine biologist and site guide from Brazil, had already been there a while. They quickly pointed us to what they’d been watching — a few splashes and what was definitely a humpback whale flipper-slapping.

We wasted no time heading back down to Hout Bay Harbour. Our eleven o’clock trip had been cancelled by the clients, but we were so keen to find what we’d seen from Chapman’s Peak that we went out anyway and turned it into a whale-watching educational trip for the crew.

We headed out of the bay towards Kommetjie and the approaching mist — and we were not disappointed. Happy, one of our deckhands, spotted a pair of humpbacks travelling south. They breached right in front of us and we positioned ourselves alongside. Captain Jacks operates the whale and dolphin watching permit for the area, so we’re able to approach these giants up to 50m.

With the mist rolling in we turned for home — and on the way our captain, James, spotted another splash. We came across two more very active humpbacks putting on a magnificent display of head-slapping: a series of jumps where they hoist half their bodies out of the water and slap down, throwing up a huge splash. We all came away understanding the difference between head-slapping and breaching.

Our whale-watching trips run daily, weather dependent, and are limited to 10 people. Call our booking office to check availability, and register for our marine alerts so we can let you know when whales have been spotted in or near Hout Bay. Dress warmly and prepare for one of the best marine safari boat trips in Cape Town.

It was a perfect Cape Town day for ocean adventures, so we planned a few boat-based whale-watching trips. There had been plenty of land-based humpback sightings, and we were eager to find some out at sea.

We set off just after 9am towards Vulcan Rock, just outside Hout Bay, then ventured on towards Kommetjie where our land-based spotter had sent us. With eyes peeled, we finally saw some blows — two humpbacks heading south at speed. Coming up alongside, we noticed the bigger of the two carried a fair bit of whale lice and was missing a dorsal fin. Perhaps an old injury from an orca when it was much younger?

We returned via Duiker Island — we’ll always include it on our itinerary where we can, because the young seals are so playful and curious that they usually put on a good show. Heading back towards Hout Bay we saw lots of splashing: a very active group of humpbacks breaching with plenty of flipper action.

On the next trip our guests were lucky enough to see a pod of 400+ long-beaked common dolphins — a huge group swimming just outside Hout Bay towards Kommetjie — and, of course, more whales. The last trip of the day was a quick one, back before dark, with too many blows to count and breathtaking sunset hues over the mountains.