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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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  • One of my primary objectives for the trip and for paddling as far south as La Paz was to dive with California sea lions at a well publicised haul out at a small island called Los Islotes, near Isla Partida, just to the north of La Paz. California sea lions are smaller than the enormous Steller sea lions that I was so fondly familiar with in Alaska. I have had so many close, entertaining and interactive encounters with those clowns of the sea and now at long last I had the opportunity to experience their antics underwater, where they are transformed from being lumbering mounds of blubber to agile, graceful underwater dancers. Los Islotes is a pink crest of rock sticking abruptly out of the sea with numerous ledges around its base as if it had been purpose-built for sea lions to sunbathe and loll around on.
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  • From Ariganour I paddled south along the east coast of Coll passing the big open Crossapol Bay with extensive sandy beaches, and stopped to camp near Calgary Point and the small island of Gunna in the strait that divides Coll from the adjacent Isle of Tiree. It was another really beautiful location, and kayaking around to the west coast allowed me to experience the ocean swells and the feeling of open exposure to the North Atlantic. The next morning shortly after heading out for the long crossing to the south end of Mull and then Lunga, I had the encounter that I had been hoping for – basking sharks !! In the distance I could see their tall tail fins sweeping from side to side, and as I got closer, their unmistakeably comical bulbous snout ploughing across the surface above their massively inflated jaws while feeding on plankton. I was so excited, and full of eager anticipation to get close enough to see them underwater. It was one of those magical moments akin to when I had my first whale encounters in a kayak. I couldn’t wait!!
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  • This was an unforgettable wild encounter! The sea was very cold so I had to haul myself back into my kayak to warm up, with my legs dangling over the side and my flippers slapping the surface like a stranded fish. Moments later I was surprised to see another kayaker paddling towards me; It was an American called Corrie who told me that he had just made the long sea crossing from Isla San Jose. It was great to be joined by another kayaker and even greater when I discovered that he had a wetsuit! There was no holding back now so I returned to the underwater circus. I discovered that there was one juvenile sea lion that was bolder than the others. At first it was trying to bite my mask and then it was nipping my chest as if it was trying to suckle from me; I think that the black neoprene wetsuit had transformed me into a marine mammal! This apparent attempt at bonding with me was taken to the next level of hilarity when all of a sudden I was aware of its flippers being wrapped around my body from behind and then feeling the little clown clinging tightly to my back! I reached behind me to feel it and it was very smooth, soft and spongy, making it conform to the shape of my back like an orthopaedic back-support. I continued swimming along with this unexpected diving accessory still firmly clamped to my back like an air cylinder. It eventually released me and disappeared momentarily; then Corrie exclaimed, “look at your kayak!” and to my amazement I watched it hauling itself onto the back of my kayak! It promptly settled down for a snooze on the most comfortable and exclusive bed available. Corrie climbed into the cockpit of my kayak to take some photos of me with my new friend, or should I say foster child, as photographic evidence was surely required. Corrie tried to evict the stowaway with my paddle, but the little rascal nipped at it and promptly slid down inside the cockpit to confirm its status as a stowaway but it was eventually evicted after much protest.
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  • I was awestruck when I was close enough to watch one cruise past me just beneath the surface. My first impression was that I was looking at a very prehistoric creature that could have been swimming alongside aquatic dinosaurs. It was astonishing to watch how the appearance of their head changed so quickly and dramatically as soon as they opened their jaws to commence feeding on the plankton soup; I can best describe it as a large umbrella popping open. I wasn’t in a position to climb out of my kayak to swim with them so I had to attempt to photograph them from the surface. I had brought a Canon G5 compact camera with a wide-angle extension lens, inside an Ikelite housing to take underwater photos. I had to try to position myself directly in front of them but not obstructing their passage, but that was difficult to do because when they are feeding they don’t just swim in a straight line but more in circles. I had to be very patient to get some reasonably good shots, and of course I was only holding the camera and housing over the side so I had to anticipate and estimate when they were in the frame. It took quite a lot of trial and error before I was successful. The visibility was very low because the water was so thick with plankton, which attracted 3 or 3 sharks as far as I can remember. I was so transfixed by these amazing but strange looking creatures that I had to drag myself away from them because I still had a long paddle ahead of me to get to Mull and Lunga, but I was quite sure that it wasn’t my last encounter with basking sharks on the trip, and fortunately I was right about that. It has recently been confirmed by data collected by the Wildlife Trusts that the place where I had my first encounter with basking sharks, Gunna Sound, between Coll and Tiree is a hotspot for them with numbers up to 4 times higher than recorded elsewhere in the UK.
    Kayaking-West-Coast-Scotland12.jpg
  • It was amazing to get in the water with the sea lions and witness their graceful speed and agility. They were curious about me as soon as I appeared. This is a popular destination for swimming with sea lions so that are very habituated to the presence of people in the water with them. It was mostly younger juveniles that I could see, with the occasional large bull, which although large seemed quite small in comparison with the Steller sea lions in Alaska.
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  • They obviously viewed me as a playmate or someone to tease and as soon as they saw me they started their pranks like this one darting towards me at high speed and then veering away as soon as I flinched. Their most annoying and clever prank was to keep picking up the anchor stone that my kayak was secured to on the ledge, swim out to deeper water and drop it so that my kayak would start drifting away and I had to keep swimming after it. I don’t know how they figured out how to do that; maybe it was something that they had already learnt to do from other kayakers, but they certainly appeared to relish my immediate reaction every time they did it. Eventually I had to wedge the rock firmly into a crack in the ledge to stop their merry prank.
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  • Leucistic oceanic manta ray (Manta birostris) barrel roll feeding on tropical krill in Honda Bay, Palawan, the Philippines
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  • Leucistic oceanic manta ray (Manta birostris) barrel roll feeding on tropical krill in Honda Bay, Palawan, the Philippines
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  • Leucistic oceanic manta ray (Manta birostris) barrel roll feeding on tropical krill in Honda Bay, Palawan, the Philippines
    whale-shark-Puerto-Princesa41.tif
  • Leucistic oceanic manta ray (Manta birostris) barrel roll feeding on tropical krill in Honda Bay, Palawan, the Philippines
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