Richard Cunningham of Freedom Charters has been fortunate to be in the right place at the right time to see these wonders of the deep.

Just last week he was aboard the Connemara with whale specialists when a pod of about seven killer whales came into sight.

"We recognised a couple of females and juveniles and a dominate bull with the biggest dorsal fin of the group," Mr Cunningham said.

The killer whales breached several times and a large male came right up to the boat.

Four days prior to that the group saw a "huge" pod of false killer whales, a large member of the dolphin family.

"We thought they were a pod of dolphins at first," Mr Cunningham said.

As Eden's old timers will attest, the killer whales traditionally showed up in Twofold Bay at this time of year looking for the northbound humpbacks and their young, but so far this year only a couple of sightings out over the shelf have been reported by fishermen.

However Mr Cunningham said a humpback had been sighted close to shore at Haycock on Tuesday, May 27, and had swum under an amateur fishing boat, startling the anglers.

A lime green pygmy manta ray was also sighted at Greencape.

Mr Cunningham said he had twice been spotted by those aboard his boat.