It’s that time of year again. The most exciting month for observers of cetaceans, because the sea seems to suddenly explode with marine megafauna coming to feast on the seasonal abundance of shoaling fish.
For those of us motivated (daft) enough to paddle out to witness the spectacle from the seat of a kayak, the rewards are great. The kayak not only provides the greatest visual experience of watching sea creatures because you are sitting at water level, but also the greatest audio experience because you are moving along in absolute silence. So, on a clam day, you can hear everything. The cackle of a Gannet, the snickering of a juvenile Peregrine from the cliffs a couple of miles away, the puff of a porpoise, the splash of a dolphin, and if you are really, really lucky, the blast of a whale.
All these sounds are drowned out by any sort of engine.
There are so many other benefits of whale-watching from a kayak. Like the challenge of the extreme planning which is necessary for offshore paddling…..wind, swell, tides, currents. If you are on a boat with an engine and have got a 200hp Evinrude at the end of your arm, moving against a three knot tidal current is a piece of cake. If you are relying upon a pair of shrivelled sixty-year old guns, fuelled by some dried out cheese and chorizo sandwiches (not recommended by the way, if you are tempted), it is a significant problem. Potentially a very long problem, if your max cruising speed is three knots.
Maybe why that is why there are so few kayakers who venture out around Devon and Cornwall looking for whales….possibly only one.
National Whale and Dolphin Watch (NWDW) is run by Seawatch Foundation and is an excellent project because it raises awareness of the cetaceans around the shores of the UK, and stimulates interest and excitement, because everybody loves dolphins and whales. And it encourages everyone to contribute their sightings.
DAY 1
After my success with the three Minke Whales at Eddystone last week, which unfortunately fell outside the window of the NWDW, I thought I would take another paddle out to the most famous lighthouse in the UK on the next calm day.
The omens for a good day were favourable when I set foot outside the house at the first sniff of dawn. Mars glowed red overhead, Venus was brilliant in the northeast, and the swallow was singing away happily in the old stable.
I was on the water at Cawsand even earlier than before, just as the sun was rising behind the lighthouse on the breakwater.
Three Common Dolphins raced past in front of me a mile out from the sound, and then another three small pods, all in a hurry, as I covered the twelve miles out to the lighthouse.
A mile short of Eddystone there was a sudden violent splashing, which only lasted a second, and I caught out of the corner of my eye. No fins appeared subsequently, so I was thinking Bluefin Tuna. Then another single splash (out of the corner of the other eye!), punctuated by a sharp looking fin. All over in a split second, but I think this really must have been a Tuna.
As usual I didn’t loiter long round the back of the lighthouse, it’s all a bit busy with recreational fishing boats. I paddled back towards the mainland for half an hour and had my lunch while bobbing about there, because this seems to be a bit of a wildlife hotspot. I think it marks the northern edge of the Eddystone reef, and this is precisely where I saw a Minke whale last week, and also precisely where I had a close encounter with a large whale, thought to be a Sei but I now think Minke, five years ago.
And as I chewed my way through my incredibly tasteless butties, I heard that incredibly thrilling sound again, a prolonged breath of a whale. Far away to the west, but unmistakably a whale. Sandwiches were jettisoned as I set off to investigate, and after fifteen minutes or so there was the long dark back of a Minke rolling at the surface.
Not as good a view as last week, and I only saw it surface a handful of times because it was frequently hidden behind the moderate swell. But I’ve got no complaints, a whale is the pinnacle of the expectations.
Interestingly, it seems to be a different whale from the three I saw last week. I might have expected it to be the same one still hunting in the same place. But the tip of the fin of this one is more rounded than any of last week’s whales. Compare today’s with last week’s:
For the long haul back the sea was spookily quiet, in fact I kept doing the yawny thing to unblock my ears, although there was the drone of boats quite a lot of the time. Just a few seabirds to maintain the interest levels:
And one porpoise surfaced, once.
DAY 2
A southerly wind picked up so I sought the more sheltered water of the North Devon coast. During the two hour window of light wind I managed to find three porpoises, including a mother and calf.
I was sure it was five until I looked at my photos. One individual with a very definite notch in its fin surfaced beside me several times on two occasions…..three miles apart. That’s finding the same needle in the haystack…twice.
It was great to meet a trio of real-life adventurers on the beach at Heddon’s mouth during a coffee break. Alan Watson and his two sons, Alex and Aled, had just camped the night on the beach having kayak-sailed all the way from Swansea on the other side of the Bristol Channel, about thirty miles away. It ended nearly all kayaking, because the wind dropped. Good effort (especially by Aled, who is thirteen).
So, the contribution to NWDW so far from thelonekayaker is 1 Minke Whale, 15 Common Dolphins and 4 Harbour Porpoise.
I might struggle to match the mega Humpback encounter from the NWDWÂ last year. But there’s still a couple of days left…….
The Lone Kayaker 