After attending the 1st World Seabird Conference in Canada in September, I got back to South Africa and headed straight out to sea. It was absolutely wonderful to be sailing out to sea under a bright full moon, although the swells were still huge after a recent cold front. We started fishing about 40 nautical miles (nm) from the coast off Cape Point. The fishing was good but the prevailing south easterly wind was due to blow more than 30km/ hour for the next three days so the skipper decided to make a run for it and head far south, almost 200 nm from shore. This is one of my favourite places on earth! No land in site and nothing but the sea, sun, fish and the birds!
The fishing was very good in this area, and the birds were awesome! In just one day I spotted three Wandering albatrosses (one with only slight white patches on the wings; an older very white one with much less black/ brown on the wings and an immature [darker] one), a northern Royal albatross, some black-bellied storm petrels and a Buller’s albatross! The sighting of the Buller’s albatross was only the 5th off South Africa, as I found out later when chatting to the rest of the ATF team. I also saw my 1st ever flesh-footed shearwater which was very exciting for me.
Another rather interesting thing that happened on the second last fishing day was that we pulled up and enormous whale skull in the net. Having assisted with whale dissections before I know what a dead whale smells like (they have a very distinct smell) and I could smell the skull before I even knew it was onboard! I couldn’t understand where the smell was coming from (looking out over the sea at the very back of the ship), until I found this massive skull, still all bloody (but completely without flesh) lying on the deck.
I asked the skipper if we could possibly keep the skull for a friend of mine who is involved with whale and dolphin research and would really appreciate it, but he said unfortunately not. A pity, but on second thoughts, I am really glad he said no as I don’t know if we would have been able to live for three days with that overpowering smell onboard! I did take a few photographs of the skull while it was onboard and showed these to my friend. She and her boss have decided that it could possibly be a humpback whale skull. So the question remains, “what happened to the whale?”