Thursday, August 6, 2009

Hermanus Pt2. Hump Back Whale.

Sunday 2 August

Today was a day which ranks up there with best experiences of my life.

We took sunrise at the whale viewing point in Hermanus. Porridge and hot tea whilst gazing across to the mountains which were changing from every shade of red and orange as the sun rose behind them and tuned the sky from crimson to blue was just about the perfect start. We spent most of the morning walking along the cliffs, spotting the odd whale, actually, not alot of activity today, just a mother and it's calf as apposed to yesterday when we really didn't know which whale to look at next.

Kieran and Dan had great fun scrabbling along the shore and I took photo's of them trying to avoid getting wet as the waves crashed into the rocks, sending towers of spray high into the air to rain down over all who dares to venture in their reach.

Sunday's at Hermanus seem to be a pretty laid back affair. There is a small market where we browsed through trinkets and souvenirs, most people just chill out in the sun, fish from the rocks or picnic on the grassy areas. There was an African band playing today and listening to that just completed the scene. Even the dassies were out, stretched out in the sun across every available rock.

This afternoon we went kayaking. lead by Rhian, a group of 8 of us, Canadian's South African's and us paddled along the shore in eager anticipation of what we might see. Straining at every opportunity in the distance, but also looking below as too as sharks often hunt amongst the kelp we were kayaking over. We didn't see much of note, a couple of inquisitive seals came to check us out every so often, and after about 90 minutes, we were heading back, thinking that today might not be our day. Just turning into the bay where we started, suddenly to our left and not to far away a huge jet of water shot up from the surface, and up popped a whale.

I cannot explain the excitement that we were overwhelmed with, but being this close to a hump back whale was incredible. All the strict instructions given to us by Rhian at the start of the session ( it is against the law to go within 300 metres of a whale ) took a nose dive out of the window as we all started to paddle furiously towards it. Rhian threw a temper tantrum and threatened to end the trip right there and then, (yeah, good luck with that!) but, we all regained our senses and eased back. forming a semi circle from the allowed distance to view this magnificent creature. This particular whale must have been in playful mood as it kept coming closer and closer until it dived down and swam right underneath all of us about 1 foot or so beneath the surface. Apparently there is nothing in law that states the whale can't come within 300 metres of us! As stunned as were all were, there was an air of tension as this thing was pretty big, and we all felt very small and helpless indeed.

It's next trick was to dive down and pop up about 5 metres right in front of Dan's kayak. Now, anyone who knows Dan will know that he doesn't express himself very much, but even he let out a shriek on this occasion.

We were all so lucky to have been this close to a humpback whale which followed us for several minutes as we paddled back to shore. I don't think I have ever been this impressed by an animal before in my life, and not even if Jonah himself had appeared, we would not have been more impressed.

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