Whales, Dolphins & Sharks etc.....

[nicollej]

Hi Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had seen any whales, dolphins, sharks or any other beautiful sea creatures on their cruising travels.

I would love to hear all about your magical encounters!

It must be so wonderful to see them in real life, I am just about to begin cruising and I can't wait to see dolphins, sea birds, seals, whales and all of the other magnificent animals in the oceans of the world.

I just adore grey whales and I can't wait to see one in real life. I also love Polar Bears, wow that would be amazing to see one!

Of course, I will watch them from a safe distance and treat them with the respect and care they deserve.

I would love to hear your stories. I don't want to hear any scary shark stories by the way, I love sharks - just nice shark stories please......

Have a wonderful day!

Smiles

Nicolle
www.ourlifeatsea.com

[Alan Wheeler]

Hi Nicolle, welcome and Congratulations on the boat purchase.
If you take a look in the photo gallery, you will see quite a few photos of Dolphins. We get to encounter Dolphins, Orca, Penguins and Albatros on regular occasions here. The Dolphins came in around us with their little ones this season. It is always special when the Dolphins come and play. You can not get tired of them. It's extra special as they come and play on the bow wave. One or two will put their tale on the bow and let the boat push them through the water. Very cool.
Another very common site here in my nieghbourhood is the MolyMawk, which is a type of Albatros. It is such a beautiful bird and plunges from sometimes hundreds of feet straight down and shoots into the water to a depth of 30ft to catch a fish. It is the fastest dive speed of any bird recorded. Sadly they eventually die from damage to the eyes from hitting the water at over 100Mph.
I have still yet to see a very large shark or a whale. They are out there, but not seen so often. Oh and of course, we have the Giant Squid and the really really big one I can't remember what silly name they call it, swimming around down in the deep Cook straight, but hey, I don't want to scare ya ;-) :-)

[seafox]

I have seen Orca on two occasions. The first time we were in a little trailer sailer following a few. The big bull either got annoyed or curious and came under our boat, looked at us and did a big free willie jump out the water beside us. My wife was terrified and climbed up the mast like a possum.
I have some photos of it all. I will scan them and put them on this site.

I have also seen whales when fishing on a commercial fishing boat out of Tutukaka. It took me a while to realise what was happening. I heard their spouts for about 10 minutes and then realised what it was.

Have even seen whales in Wellington Harbour. Usually Right whales come into the harbour and cruise around for a few days.

[mudnut]

I love all sea creatures,but what I found most relaxing(Strange enough)were the flying fish that cruised alongside our boat 100km out to sea off FNQ(Australia)I just love creatures.Mudnut.

[ssullivan]

Hi Nicolle and congrats on the new boat! I'm sure you two are very happy about it.

I have seen:

*Pods of dolphins numbering in the hundreds with about 1/10 of them babies, breaching along in the Caribbean - if you are there, you may see some!

*Dolphins coming up to the boat to check *us* out a couple weeks ago.

*Manatees in FL

*Pilot whales, humpback whales, Right whales, and any other number of whales - the North Atlantic is full of them

*Puffin birds (nearly extinct)

*Bald Eagles, Terns, Falcons, Hawks, Herons... more birds than I can remember. My wife knows them all though.

*Lived at anchor about 300ft from a large colony of harbor seals for a month. It was funny. They let us know if we were getting too close when dinghying around. They biggest male would swim directly for us, scaring us half to death. ha ha

*Seen the water "boiling" with bait fish and predators in a feeding frenzy.

AND... all that is from the deck of the boat without even counting the diving in Bonaire, snorkeling at various reefs, etc...

Then you can go into things like Tarpon, Angel Fish, etc... etc...

You'll see more aquatic life than you can imagine.

[Robertcateran]

HI Nicolle,
I have seen sperm whales blowing off the port bow about 200nm out of Sydney when I worked on a tuna boat . It seems romantic until you smell their breath. I have also helped a pigmy sperm whale recover her strength after being attacked by cookie cutter sharks, and helped her get back to sea again. I also got a face full of snot while I was helping her. At the time of the sperm whales. We came across a piece of a giant squid mantle that was 150mm thick and about 2 meters squared in area. The night before, I had seen the glowing eyes of a what I am assuming was a giant squid off the back of the boat. I have seen Dugong and tiger sharks in Torres strait and manta rays and sunfish off the coast of NSW. I have also seen rainbows of flying squid being chased by albacore (I even had a paper published on it)- The list goes on. Just keep your eyes open , check out the interfaces of the currents and have some good books to ID the critters,
Robert
PS.The small critters and algae are also fascinating. I look at plankton sometimes for a living. Try and get hold of a microscope and plankton net. You could probably find out how to make a plankton net on the web

[Connemara]

Used to be a great pic on the site of some guy in the shallows, while a huge swell rose up behind him with a bunch of dolphins swimming in it. Can't find it now.

Connemara

[nicollej]

Wow, thank you all for your lovely replies to my post.

It sounds like some of you have been lucky enough to see some wonderful marine creatures.

I can't wait to see some of the beautiful animals you have spoken about when we go cruising in thise areas.

Mark and I watch lots of documetries, so it will be wonderful to finally see some of the animals we have learn't about on the TV in real life.

Thanks for sharing your encounters and stories with me.

I will keep my eyes and ears open and look forward to seeing animals in the wild!

Have a wonderful day.

Smiles

Nicolle
Our Life At Sea

[Steve Pope]

Hey Alan is your Mollymawk our Gannet??

[David M]

Thats great...your engagement photo!

Inside the SF Bay I have seen a number of Humpback whales and Gray whales. On two occasions only, I have see a pod of porpoises.

[seafox]

Nope, we have the same gannet. You have the mollymawk up your way too. He is the ugly coloured Albatross type bird.
We have heaps of real Royal Albatross in the Cook Strait. They are beautiful birds with huge wing spans.

[Steve Pope]

I will have to take more notice of the Mollymawks diving habits, the seabirds I enjoy the most are what we call jesus birds, they tip toe on the water rarely flying more that 1/2 a metre above the waves.
We see many dolphins every time out sailing also the odd shark, they seem to cruise slowly and apparently aimlessly though I'm sure from a sharks perspective that wouldn't be the case, have seen 1 whale that was heading north off Whangaruru, what caught our attention was the vapour from the whales breath blowing at least 5 metres above the surounding water.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by Steve Pope

what caught our attention was the vapour from the whales breath blowing at least 5 metres above the surounding water.

Very good point. Yes, it is often the sound of the animal that catches your attention. Today, I saw a manatee within 3ft of my dinghy. Heard the "PFFFFFT!" then saw bubbles everywhere before the manatee surfaced more of its body.

Then later, after some visitors left, I was putting a few things away on deck and it was very quiet. I heard another "pffffft!" and it was a dolphin about 10 ft off my starboard hull. There were quite a few of them out here today, actually.

[Tropic Cat]

Originally Posted by ssullivan

Very good point. Yes, it is often the sound of the animal that catches your attention. Today, I saw a manatee within 3ft of my dinghy. Heard the "PFFFFFT!" then saw bubbles everywhere before the manatee surfaced more of its body.

Yankees... got to love em . Sean I have to chase the manatees away from my stern before I start the engines. Now think about that for a moment as we have some 1000 pound males around the marina and they like to 'argue'.

Dolphins are indeed magical. The sounds of twin hulls sailing through the lagoon seems to attract them and some days we have a large pod around us.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by rickm505

Yankees... got to love em . Sean I have to chase the manatees away from my stern before I start the engines. Now think about that for a moment as we have some 1000 pound males around the marina and they like to 'argue'.

Dolphins are indeed magical. The sounds of twin hulls sailing through the lagoon seems to attract them and some days we have a large pod around us.

I have to admit... I was a tad nervous about the manatee being literally 3 ft to my starboard in the dinghy. I had been pulling away from the dock in idle speed in reverse when he surfaced. I put the prop into neutral as fast as I could to make sure I didn't nick him.

I was hoping he'd remain calm and not get all excited and jump up on the dinghy, killing me by mistake. Luckily, he did remain calm.

Yup... us yanks don't know squat about these sea cows... ha ha