Thank you for sharing your review; as we explain to all our guests before departing on our trips, we are dealing with nature. While we would love to be able to guarantee a sighting, this unfortunately is not only unrealistic is it not possible.
I would like to address the following:
Considering that your booking was made online in September, we had not coerced you into making a reservation with our company, your trip date was 01 November and not 02 November as you report, and I must point out that on this date we did not run a morning trip, as the 12 o clock was the first trip on that date.
With regards our passenger numbers, please note that you were booked on the permitted whale & dolphin-watching vessel – passengers 12.
Our other vessels offer eco tours, we do not offer tours for 40 passengers.
We are most certainly still seeing whales this time of year, November is considered our best month for sightings, the largest individuals and the youngest calves combined with spectacular displays and social whales. –Towards the end of November mostly mothers with calves- mostly we expect have been born late in season, and once old enough to make the arduous journey home to the Southern oceans/Antarctic feeding grounds, are still sighted daily and we will still see these last few whales moving along our coastline all the way through to end of November, and possibly even right through December - as we do every year. Our last recorded sightings for the 2015 whale migration season was 03 January 2016..
The whale season does not start and end on any specific date. In terms of what you state –“Whale season ended early in 2016 “ this is a completely untrue an unsupported statement. We start seeing our first migrating whales as early as March/April these are the eager Humpback whale individuals, then more often and in greater numbers the Humpback whales are sighted in June/July August while they make their way towards the tropics, from around the end of August/September we start seeing them moving past us heading South- as they make their way home... the Humpback whale is the whale most commonly spotted along our shores over this time and in great numbers, as well as the Southern right whales, however in much lower numbers and less frequently and for a much shorter season. In the marine science and research world there has been a notable decline in sightings of the Southern rights and I may mention that in an aerial study of the southern African coastline which was conducted this year only 60 odd Southern Right cow calf pairs recorded compared the +_ 260 odd cow calf pairs recorded in 2015.
In terms of migration the whales move as and when they are ready and not all in one go there is no cut off date, we never know when we have seen the last one? However our tours and trips are experiential and include all marine life that we encounter out at sea, this includes all year round sightings of the inshore non-migrating Bryde's whales, common, bottlenose and the endangered Humpback dolphins, along with seals, penguins, sun fish, and a host of pelagic bird life. It is not unusual that we encounter all of these on one trip.
It is definitely our wish that on each of our trips our clients get to see these majestic creatures along with the other marine life we encounter on a daily basis, but unfortunately it is beyond our control -as with any game viewing done on land.
This is emphasized before each and every trip that we run.
Since whales are migrating they do not stay in the same location overnight, not even for a few hours, this goes for all marine life.
Our company, staff and skippers pride ourselves that we offer a unique, authentic, personalized, and uncontrived experience that many a traveller has enjoyed and remarked on! it is very unfortunate indeed that this was not your experience.
Our obligations and commitment to research requires that we record and log the GPS location, species, numbers and behavior of every mammal sighted on our trips along with photographic evidence of each sighting where possible, all of which is available and on record.
