Walker Bay

I haven’t had much to write about over the last few days but came across this article on a southern right whale which breached off the coast of Cape Town on Wednesday. I sincerely hope the whale was not hurt!



As regular readers know I have just returned from Stanford, South Africa, off Walker Bay which is the nursing grounds for the Southern Write Whale. For six months of the year these whales stay in Walker Bay feeding their young and are seen on a daily basis as close as 10mts from the shore. Its one of the great nature spectacles of the world and I am privileged to say I have witnessed it.

We, my friends and I, regularly fish in these same waters, often hearing and seeing these magnificent beasts. We are in a small fishing boat, nowhere near the size of the yacht. If one of these animals should take it into his head to visit us in anger there would be nothing left of Mark’s and Anthony’s highly prized floating fun palace.

Why do we endangering ourselves sailing into the deep blue younder while there are dangerous animals weighing 40 tons plus waiting to snuff out our lives with a single swing of their tale? The truth is these animals are gentle creatures, that I honestly believe would not deliberately hurt any animal that was not threatening them – or their young. They are curious but gentle creatures and usually we are delighted to see them swim up to and around the boat.

The first time I came across an inquisitive whale was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean . We were sailing form the Cape Verde Islands to Brazil via Fernando de Noronha (the most beautiful place in the world - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jiNfvitbWA - it even beats Stanford).

I was on a 40ft yacht with two aquatints in 30ft in a swell on a beautiful sunny day when a fin was seen in the wave behind us. I looked up and saw what I latter discovered to be an adolescent Sperm Whale looking down at me through the clear mid Atlantic waters. A magnificent sight!

I began to get a ‘little’ worried when 30mins later he was still hanging around. I became ‘positively’ worried when he surfaced 10yds away from the yacht and soaked me with the spray from his blow hole. Can you imagine being soaked by the spray from a whale’s blow hole – its not very pleasant, the smell of fish staid in my hair for weeks? When we realised we were in its control, if he wanted to smash the boat he could, we could do nothing about it. Once that is established, we realise that he didn’t want to and I began to enjoy having him around.

Of course accidents happen, which is what happened with our Southern Right. Mark was in Walker Bay fishing on Wednesday and reported that whales were breaching all around him. Maybe there was something in the water on Wednesday?

In my opinion there is something in the water everyday in Walker Bay!