After an uninspiring shore run at Palermo, Sicily and then a superb day around Carthage, Tunisia, we had two days at sea. We were on deck just before first light on the first morning and there was another reasonable sunrise. The weather and sea conditions were reasonable as we sailed East about thirty miles North of the Algerian coastline towards the Straits of Gibraltar.
We were looking forward to our second day at sea after leaving Tunis, as we would be approaching the Eastern end of the Alboran Sea. This is the part of the Mediterranean Sea which lies between Gibraltar and Almeria on the Iberian side and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and Oran (Eastern Algeria) on the North African coast. The average depth of the Alboran Sea is about four hundred and fifty metres, with a maximum depth of fifteen hundred metres. It is an Important Marine Mammal Area (IMMA) and is a good area to see Cuvier's Beaked Whales and Dolphins. When we arrived on deck, we were disappointed to find that we had lost the calm seas and light winds of the previous day. The seas had lots of whitecaps and there was a stiff headwind. The observation conditions had clearly deteriorated overnight.
We endured a stiff headwind all morning. By early afternoon, the headwind had strengthened to around thirty knots and we looked for another viewing location on the deck. One obvious location was on one of the higher aft decks. The top deck had an outside buffet and so, this wasn't realistic and the first deck below it was a smokers location. We could have tried the deck below that. The drawback was we weren't able to see forward from this deck and therefore, while we could watch from this location, we couldn't carry out a proper survey. Instead we tried the aft end of deck 13, where the passengers have a sheltered central position to play their popular game of Quoits. This allowed us to survey from both sides and to walk between the two sides, providing there was no Quoits being played. More importantly, it was a relatively sheltered location.
Within about an hour on being on the side of the ship, we had enjoyed some Dolphin sightings. The first was a small pod of Striped Dolphins. Next Terry had a lone Short-beaked Common Dolphin. A few minutes later, I picked up a couple more, as I looked up from recording the first sighting. Fortunately, this placed me on the correct side of the ship for the main event. One of our regular passengers, Andy, said 'What's that'. Terry had also seen it about the same time and knew what it was. I looked up from the ORCA tablet and about sixty metres off the side of the ship was a lovely Cuvier's Beaked Whale. Somehow, I managed to say Cuvier's Beaked Whale before Terry, but I think he was just focusing on getting his camera onto it as soon as possible. Lifting my camera was slowed, by having to log the sighting's position on the tablet first. As a result, Terry managed to get the best angled photo of the two of us. Fortunately, it resurfaced twice more to allow me to get some photos. We were also calling Lexie over from the port side, but unfortunately, she didn't appear quick enough to see her first Cuvier's Beaked Whale. All too quickly it was gone. It was easily my Cetacean highlight of the cruise.
While the sea conditions during the day hadn't been favourable compared to the first day at sea after Tunis, it had been one of our better days thanks to the Cuvier's Beaked Whale. When we packed up for the day, I didn't stay up for the sunset as it was my time to prepare the slide for the day. One of the duties of the day for the ORCA team was to prepare a daily slide to be displayed on the TV screens. Fortunately, there was no problem thinking of a subject for the slide.
We passed through the Straits of Gibraltar during the evening and the next morning, we were entering the port of Cadiz for our final shore run.