“Oh my God!”

“What, are you OK?”

“Oh my God! I just saw a whale!” called Cathy.

I turned towards her and saw the splash of something big hitting the water. I’d missed it. No wait! There it went again! The whale breached three more times, before disappearing. It was our first evening in Hermanus, on the Western Cape, and we’d just gone for a casual walk. The breaching whale was a perfect introduction to Hermanus.

That morning, we’d said goodby to Marty, Magoo, Bill and Jim, who we’d been traveling around Southern Africa with for the last month. We added on three days at the end of the trip for just Cathy and I, and we were going to Hermanus for some whale watching. We left Cape Town around noon in our rental car, and stopped for lunch at a neat little place called The Thirsty Oyster in Gordon’s Bay. We arrived in Hermanus in the late afternoon and that’s when we had that first whale sighting.

Hermanus is known for the best land based whale watching in the world. Every year in August or September, the Southern Right Whale travels from the waters of Antarctica to calve in Walker Bay, off of Hermanus. They stay in the area for a couple of months raising their calves, mating, and then traveling back to Antarctica. By the end of November, most of the whales are gone.

The first full day, we saw perhaps 15 whales. The best was off of Sievers Point where we spied two that were doing some kind of dance together. We watched the choreography for an hour as evening was setting. Were they playing, or getting to know each other, or mating? We don’t know. We do know that it was beautiful to watch.

The following day was even better. In the morning as we watched from Gearing’s Point, four whales with their calves paraded past where we were standing on the cliffs. They are huge animals – I’m guessing the mothers were over forty feet long. They took their time, before finally moving on.

After watching them for so long, we were hungry and walked to The Bistro, a restaurant near our lodge. As we were drinking our beers and eating our cauliflower soups with blue cheese, there was a commotion in the cove opposite the restaurant. The same four pair of whales entered the cove, and the calves started playing together. They were slapping their tails on the water, or learning to slap their tails, as some did it better than others. Some people think that the the tail slapping is a form of communications, but no one knows for sure. We watched them through out lunch. We talked with several locals, including the owner of the restaurant – everyone was enjoying the show. They said the whale watching this year was the best they’d seen in four years.

We finally left when the whales had moved on. We were walking back to our room when the four pair had one last surprise for us – they’d moved on to Fick’s Pool, directly across from our lodge and the calves were again playing together. We crossed the road and walked out on the rocks for a better view and continued to watch them for another hour. They finally left.

That night, we had a final dinner at a nearby restaurant, The Heritage Cottage. It was perhaps our best meal in town, with Cathy having mussels in a garlic cream sauce, while I went with the Kudu filet. I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to have kudu again, and didn’t want to pass up one last opportunity. The local Pinotage/Cab blend went pretty well with the meal.

The next morning, we packed and said our goodbyes at the lodge. We drove to Gearing’s Point one last time to see if there were any whales. The weather had cooled, and it was cloudy that morning. We left our car to scan the Bay for whales. After five minutes of watching, we saw none and decided to drive on to the airport in Cape Town. It was time to start our journey home.

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This is the tenth (and final) in a series of short blogs about our trip to Africa in September and October of 2018. I’m not trying to be exact in detail, rather, I’m trying to give a bit of the spirit or feeling of the various parts of the trip. Read at your leisure. Or not.

Related Blogs about the trip to Africa:

Cape Town (ninth blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/cape-town/

Wine Safari – Stellenbosch (eighth blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/wine-safari-stellenbosch/

Rra Dinare Safari Camp (seventh blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/29/rra-dinare-safari-camp-in-botswana/

He was Young and Made a Mistake (Sixth blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/23/he-was-young-and-made-a-mistake-sable-valley-in-botswana/

Vic Falls – The Smoke that Thunders (5th Blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/18/the-smoke-that-thunders/

First Safari Camp, at The Hide (Fourth blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/first-safari-camp/

Fishing and Elephants (Third blog about the trip) https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/fishing-and-elephants/

The Drive to Lake Kariba (Second Blog about the trip) – https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/08/the-drive-to-lake-kariba/

Harare (First Blog about the trip) – https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/02/harare-zimbabwe/

Zimbabwe (Just prior to departure) – https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/20/zimbabwe/

Pink Gins (The Genesis)- https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/13/pink/