Marine research is hard to do (or at least not pleasant) when the weather is dark and wet so we haven't been able to get out of the lab much. To make up for this, SASC was nice enough to send us out on a whale watching vessel.
The boat left the harbor and after about 10 minutes we spotted our first whales. It was a mother and her calf swimming side by side. Calves are 4-5 meters when born and can grow up to 3 cm per day so judging from the size of this one, it wasn't very old.
Our next sightings just kept getting better. At first it was a pod of dolphins in the distance. When we got closer, we saw that it was actually about 200 dolphins surrounding a humpback whale. Although the whale didn't particularly enjoy the company, it made for a great show. It would spin and slap its pectoral fins on the water to keep the dolphins at bay. We followed them for a while and even had a seal join in on the fun before we moved on.
Just as we were reaching the other side of the bay we found a group of 5 southern right whales all spyhopping and having fun. Knowing that this was the last sighting before we headed back, we stayed with them for quite a while as they swam around our boat. Since most of the whales were at the front of the boat, the viewing deck started to get crowded up there so a few of us were invited to see the ones at the back of the boat. The deck at the back is smaller and only a few sections of it were dry but I had already flooded my shoes earlier in the day so I took the lower section. That was a mistake but also might have saved me.
Just as the last whale dove out of sight, I looked up to see a massive rogue wave heading towards us. To make matters worse, it was coming at the boat from the side and was starting to break. I of course took a picture of it and the next thing I know, I got slammed into the wall of the boat and all I could see was white. It felt like it lasted forever but it was probably only a few very long seconds. Once I could see again, I saw the girl next to me on the ground holding on the lower railing as the water kept washing her feet out from under her. The boat finally righted itself fully (we definitely weren't upright for a bit there) and the crew members started scurrying around to usher all of us inside and make sure we were all alright. Everybody was fine and a few of us were even laughing about it. They got out dust pans and buckets to start bailing out the water in the cabin. Everyone was soaked but being that nobody was supposed to be getting in the water, they didn't have towels so we used blankets to dry off. Half the people aboard seemed to have been scared for their life while the rest of us thought it was quite fun. We all survived though and I even took it as an opportunity to walk around barefoot for the rest of the day.
Reference: http://oceanadventures.co.za/southern-right-whales-distribution-and-reproduction/