Dolpin Cruise

I realise that my posts about the Christmas holidays so far have been mainly text with very few pictures. I do apologise but quite simply, we didn't really take many photos. But hopefully this post will make up for it!

One day we went on a dolphin cruise. It was about five hours long and we saw pelicans, dolphins, seals and we were taken to go see the seal colony. It was absolutely adorable seeing the tiny balls of fluff that were the seal pups, although I was kicking myself for not taking along my big lens so that I could have taken photos of them! Although I still did manage to take some good photos :D

The dolphin cruise truly was incredible - and something I would definitely recommend to anybody who's ever in Namibia. We phoned the guy up the evening before and in the morning they came and picked us up in the Kombi to take us to Walvis Bay.







Before the cruise we all had the chance to browse through the little shops that lined the water, so Katie and I took the opportunity to browse through the most amazing little jewellery shop. There were even some traditional Himba women selling their jewellery which was quite an amazing thing to see.






At the front of the boat there was a little section almost like a trampoline where we made our base for the day. It was amazing to sit at the very edge of the boat, just watching the Bay go by.








First the crew managed to get some pelicans to come over to the boat. It was incredible seeing them up close - although I must confess I was a little nervous when one of the guys starting throwing them the fish directly above my head!!!









We then had a visit from some seals which I personally loved. They've trained  few of the seals from the bay to come aboard the boats and let people stroke them. Although the crew did remind us that they're still wild animals.










One woman got the shock of her life when the seal actually jumped onto her lap and then refused to get off! Still, it gave everybody else on the boat a good chance to get close to the adorable creature and give him a stroke.




Unfortunately not everybody shared my love of these cute little animals. She who shall not be named (*cough* Daisy Holmes) suddenly announced that she hates seals and so she sat as far away from the seal as she possibly could. If anyone was ever looking for evidence that animals are psychic, this would be a pretty good example to look at.
 The seal waddled the entire way around the boat until he came face to face with Daisy! I'm not sure who was more shocked - Daisy, or the seal! Unsurprisingly I was in hysterics about the whole situation, especially at Daisy's face when the seal started coming towards her :)

Once we had visited the seal colony - which I must confess did not have a particularly...nice aroma, we set off to find some dolphins. It took us a while and I think that everybody was beginning to despair, but then finally two appeared :)

The captain seemed told us that the dolphins are attracted by the motion of the engines. Apparently it's very similar to the vibrations that dolphin give out when they want to mate, and so understandably they feel drawn to it. He also informed us that dolphins are the only other animal apart from humans that have sex for fun - a fact that he seemed to find most amusing.

 It was amazing watching the dolphins have so much fun in the surf behind the boat. I think I found it especially incredible since dolphins have always been one of my favourite animals, and for years I wanted to work with them.







 
 
I spent most of the time attempting to get a good photo of them, which was actually far more difficult than you might think. I was absolutely kicking myself at one point for missing the opportunity to take a photo of one of the dolphins leaping in the air. Although I suppose it was just as amazing watching it properly :)

 




 It was an absolutely incredible day, and it's definitely one of my favourite memories so far. Definitely something that I would do again if I ever I got the chance!