I was very relieved when I finally set foot in “ Casa Isabel”. Not speaking a word of Spanish makes travelling here tricky, and even more so after spending a sleepless night in Glasgow Airport. But I made it in one piece and everyone was very welcoming. Ruth (the boss-lady) explained about her project and our role as volunteers and next morning we were off to search for the orcas.
Apart from scanning the sea, I also hope to catch a glimpse of migrating birds that come from Africa. They use the air currents to travel long distances and try to cross the narrowest bit of sea, and that is more or less here. The first Spanish word I learned is “milano negro”, or black kite, because we saw one on my first day.
However, while my bird sightings list is growing steadily day by day, we still had to spot our first orcas. Some volunteers came and went without seeing them at all and Ruth was getting a bit worried she wasn’t getting any other data then “0”. Yesterday started off no different. Three of us were at la Rocca and the others in Brena. It was very windy and surprisingly cold (coming from the North of Scotland I’m already burnt bright red and find it very hot during the day). Our group at La Roca was about to give up when we got a call from Ruth: orca in sight! As we couldn’t see it from our position, we raced to join the others and sure enough, there they were. Three of them close to the Almadraba, minding their own business going from one end to the other, milling and even feeding. We observed them for hours, it was great.
Orcas in sight !!!
Today was windy again, unfortunately. We didn’t stay to watch as the sea was too rough. On the other hand, this gave us a chance to focus on the Almadraba, as the first tuna were caught and brought to shore. We witnessed them being lifted off the boat; very impressive fish.
Hopefully this means the start of the fishing season for both man and orca and that Ruth and the team will get many more sightings!
Volunteer Orca project
29-04-09
