Wot no photos?
Er, no. Difficult to take photos when you break your camera. It seems that sea kayaking didn't agree with my camera (I may have had a touch of the sun when I though it was a good idea to take my recently fixed camera with me). I then had to find if anyone in Hermanus could fix it (they couldn't), buy a new one, try and charge its rechargeable battery before I had to go on my boat trip (and fail). So, no photos. Though I did buy some very nice postcards, which are better than anything I would have taken.
So, you'll just have to rely on the word of Poll to describe the magic of Whales (that's Whales, with an H, Zoe).
Early start on Sunday morning to get the BazBus to Hermanus: the BazBus runs 4 or 5 routes around SA, I was on the Cape Town to Port Elizabeth one. That takes about 14 hours to go all the way (no Sting gags, thank you very much), but the idea is that you hop on and off at the place you need. I got off (along with the other 6 on the bus) to be collected by the Hermanus Backpapers hostel shuttle, which took us all back to probably the best hostel I've ever stayed in. Brightly painted, murals of whales, unable to do enough for you, regular Brais, breakfast and more help and maps than you could shake a stick out marked this place out as a winner (and well worth the extra 10 rand (75-80p) compared to my last one).
4 of us from the Bazbus got together and did a quick turn round to head out for a walk along the coast road (where you can watch the whales from) and then sea kayaking. Hermanus has one the world's 3 whale sanctuaries, where no boats are allowed. Of course a Kayak is not a boat, so into the sanctuary we went with about 8 other folk.
The other two wanted their own kayak-Anne and I had sussed out that sharing a boat would be less work. It's fair to say we were destined for the naughty step from then. Our control of the kayak was of Ultimate Olympian standard. Dirk was our leader and we were supposed to stay pretty close to him; not 80m away watching a whale. Of course that was preferable to us being anywhere near the others-if you watch Olympic kayaking, I reckon they look where they're going. We just paddled one way, while looking at the whales somewhere else, and had the inevitable up close and personal encounters. We were a little unlucky when a wave took us crashing into Andy (another BazBusser), but I guess we maybe should have left more margin for error. It's safe to say we made no new friends in the world of Kayak.
It was rather special. Every so often Dirk would gather the group so he could talk to us; no one listened, we were watching the whales! At various times we were 20-30 metres away from the whales (one occasion it was a mother and calf); in fact we drifted so close (and the whales moved towards us), that we had to move back a few times in case the whales got playful and sank us! We also had groups of seals swimming round the kayaks and playing.
First sunburn-inevitable really. Our control of the kayak was such that plenty of the sea washed over my legs to get rid of the sun tan lotion. Worth it though. And I discovered a new After Sun product-mousse with Aloe Vera-a winner for all of you burn as easily as I do.
After that we took a walk along the coast (more whales), grabbed some dinner (first pizza of the trip) and a few local brews. Only slight downer was the cars going round and round in circles on the TV; this slightly depressed Marion (the german), apparently some bloke called Schumacher was supposed to win. (My apathy for F1 is well known, but even I know enough to recognise that the SA TV was broadcasting with ITV's commentary, which seemed weird).
So despite camera problems, I was buzzing on Monday morning. After running round Hermanus' camera emporia, I headed off to to do my whale watching bost trip. Which was awesome (imagine back to front baseball cap). It was genuinely jaw dropping, did you see that, I'm never going to forget this stuff.
Within 10 mins wew were within 50 metres of a whale, which is very strange and hard to describe. It inspires a combination of cathedral like quiet, knowing glances to your neighbour, massive smiles and a kind of spiritual serenity. Or more simply, it is awesome dude. To add a touch of the surreal, we had a small dog running round both decks of the boat-I never did see how he got upstairs. Somehow the dog seemed to epitomise the group excitement.
This was all small beer to what happened later. We powered across the bay, and then turned off the engines as we approached 3 whales: the rules are that we have to keep a certain distance (I forget what, but the whales are so big that you can still see them really well). However, once the engines are off, if the whales decide to approach us, that's fine. They can get as close as they like-it's their choice. They choose to come close. Pretty soon there were 8 around the boat: these were Southern 'Right' Whales (so named about 100 years ago as they were 'right' for hunting. The average Southern Right is 45 tonnes, or 10 large African elephants in real money. And with those 45 tonnes, they breach.
Breaching is when the whale shoots vertically out of the water (about half to two thirds of it's body length), then crashes back into the sea. Sometimes they throw in a twist for good measure. No one knows why they do this. There are many theories-to 'scratch' the itch caused by the barnacles attached to them; to help them shed skin. I like to think they do it because they can. It looks like fun!
I had seen a few whales breach from a distance, then one of the ones near us started breaching. It breached 3 or 4 times consecutively, each time getting closer to the boat. Skipper said if the whale had done one more, then it would splashed us-something that had only happened once before to him. It was quite a sight, power and grace combining majestically.
One of the other whales was floating around on his back, waving his snooker table sized flippers about and showing off his white belly-I think he wanted someone to scratch it. Another was playing with a seal. Another was blowing hard and you could see both blowholes clearly. Another was curious about the boat.
By this stage, I had got onto the top deck of the boat (boat took about 40 folk and ten at a time could go upstairs). I heard gasp from nehind me and there was a whale 10m from the boat, as he submerged the skipper called out that we would probably go under the boat. So I looked over my railing. Then in the water I could see him; for something like 5 or 10 seconds before he broke the surface right in front of me. Most impressive.
I wasn't that upset about the photos-having no camera made me fully involved in the moment, rather than waiting to get the shot. Many other people were trying to get photos and spent a lot of time looking through a viewfinder, but because of the delay with digital cameras it seemed hardly anyone got anything good. I felt I had been very lucky to have seen so much on the trip-it was two hours. The two days seemed like weeks. And we fished a Rugby ball out the water on the way back to shore.
When I described my experience later to a couple in the BazBus, they were a little crestfallen-they decided to go at 9 rather than 12 when I went-they hadn't seen quite as much.
Only slight downer-on returning to Cape Town and the Cat and Moose, Mauro told me he had eaten my remaining goat's cheese: the bit about me coming back had been lost in transalation. Not to worry. The 2 days had been a massive highlight. Even if England can't play one day cricket.
The whole experience of Hermanus reaffirmed my boycott of things from Japan, which I started when they manipulated the International Whaling again this summer.
I will need to concentrate on that a bit more, as soon after I looked at my new digital camera.
Which is a Fuji.
Bollocks.
I've checked into the place we're all staying tonight before heading off on safari. Another Rikki's dash across town (with my so overweight bag). I've only met one of the guys on the trip so far-Roger the retired guy from Canada, who seems quite nice. I wonder if the fact I'm sharing a room with him tonight means I'm the second oldest! Hopefully there'll be some party folk in the other 17.
I really have no idea when I will next get to a PC. So, till the next PC, take care of yourself.
PS PC I am using doesn't have word, so no spell/typing checker.
So, you'll just have to rely on the word of Poll to describe the magic of Whales (that's Whales, with an H, Zoe).
Early start on Sunday morning to get the BazBus to Hermanus: the BazBus runs 4 or 5 routes around SA, I was on the Cape Town to Port Elizabeth one. That takes about 14 hours to go all the way (no Sting gags, thank you very much), but the idea is that you hop on and off at the place you need. I got off (along with the other 6 on the bus) to be collected by the Hermanus Backpapers hostel shuttle, which took us all back to probably the best hostel I've ever stayed in. Brightly painted, murals of whales, unable to do enough for you, regular Brais, breakfast and more help and maps than you could shake a stick out marked this place out as a winner (and well worth the extra 10 rand (75-80p) compared to my last one).
4 of us from the Bazbus got together and did a quick turn round to head out for a walk along the coast road (where you can watch the whales from) and then sea kayaking. Hermanus has one the world's 3 whale sanctuaries, where no boats are allowed. Of course a Kayak is not a boat, so into the sanctuary we went with about 8 other folk.
The other two wanted their own kayak-Anne and I had sussed out that sharing a boat would be less work. It's fair to say we were destined for the naughty step from then. Our control of the kayak was of Ultimate Olympian standard. Dirk was our leader and we were supposed to stay pretty close to him; not 80m away watching a whale. Of course that was preferable to us being anywhere near the others-if you watch Olympic kayaking, I reckon they look where they're going. We just paddled one way, while looking at the whales somewhere else, and had the inevitable up close and personal encounters. We were a little unlucky when a wave took us crashing into Andy (another BazBusser), but I guess we maybe should have left more margin for error. It's safe to say we made no new friends in the world of Kayak.
It was rather special. Every so often Dirk would gather the group so he could talk to us; no one listened, we were watching the whales! At various times we were 20-30 metres away from the whales (one occasion it was a mother and calf); in fact we drifted so close (and the whales moved towards us), that we had to move back a few times in case the whales got playful and sank us! We also had groups of seals swimming round the kayaks and playing.
First sunburn-inevitable really. Our control of the kayak was such that plenty of the sea washed over my legs to get rid of the sun tan lotion. Worth it though. And I discovered a new After Sun product-mousse with Aloe Vera-a winner for all of you burn as easily as I do.
After that we took a walk along the coast (more whales), grabbed some dinner (first pizza of the trip) and a few local brews. Only slight downer was the cars going round and round in circles on the TV; this slightly depressed Marion (the german), apparently some bloke called Schumacher was supposed to win. (My apathy for F1 is well known, but even I know enough to recognise that the SA TV was broadcasting with ITV's commentary, which seemed weird).
So despite camera problems, I was buzzing on Monday morning. After running round Hermanus' camera emporia, I headed off to to do my whale watching bost trip. Which was awesome (imagine back to front baseball cap). It was genuinely jaw dropping, did you see that, I'm never going to forget this stuff.
Within 10 mins wew were within 50 metres of a whale, which is very strange and hard to describe. It inspires a combination of cathedral like quiet, knowing glances to your neighbour, massive smiles and a kind of spiritual serenity. Or more simply, it is awesome dude. To add a touch of the surreal, we had a small dog running round both decks of the boat-I never did see how he got upstairs. Somehow the dog seemed to epitomise the group excitement.
This was all small beer to what happened later. We powered across the bay, and then turned off the engines as we approached 3 whales: the rules are that we have to keep a certain distance (I forget what, but the whales are so big that you can still see them really well). However, once the engines are off, if the whales decide to approach us, that's fine. They can get as close as they like-it's their choice. They choose to come close. Pretty soon there were 8 around the boat: these were Southern 'Right' Whales (so named about 100 years ago as they were 'right' for hunting. The average Southern Right is 45 tonnes, or 10 large African elephants in real money. And with those 45 tonnes, they breach.
Breaching is when the whale shoots vertically out of the water (about half to two thirds of it's body length), then crashes back into the sea. Sometimes they throw in a twist for good measure. No one knows why they do this. There are many theories-to 'scratch' the itch caused by the barnacles attached to them; to help them shed skin. I like to think they do it because they can. It looks like fun!
I had seen a few whales breach from a distance, then one of the ones near us started breaching. It breached 3 or 4 times consecutively, each time getting closer to the boat. Skipper said if the whale had done one more, then it would splashed us-something that had only happened once before to him. It was quite a sight, power and grace combining majestically.
One of the other whales was floating around on his back, waving his snooker table sized flippers about and showing off his white belly-I think he wanted someone to scratch it. Another was playing with a seal. Another was blowing hard and you could see both blowholes clearly. Another was curious about the boat.
By this stage, I had got onto the top deck of the boat (boat took about 40 folk and ten at a time could go upstairs). I heard gasp from nehind me and there was a whale 10m from the boat, as he submerged the skipper called out that we would probably go under the boat. So I looked over my railing. Then in the water I could see him; for something like 5 or 10 seconds before he broke the surface right in front of me. Most impressive.
I wasn't that upset about the photos-having no camera made me fully involved in the moment, rather than waiting to get the shot. Many other people were trying to get photos and spent a lot of time looking through a viewfinder, but because of the delay with digital cameras it seemed hardly anyone got anything good. I felt I had been very lucky to have seen so much on the trip-it was two hours. The two days seemed like weeks. And we fished a Rugby ball out the water on the way back to shore.
When I described my experience later to a couple in the BazBus, they were a little crestfallen-they decided to go at 9 rather than 12 when I went-they hadn't seen quite as much.
Only slight downer-on returning to Cape Town and the Cat and Moose, Mauro told me he had eaten my remaining goat's cheese: the bit about me coming back had been lost in transalation. Not to worry. The 2 days had been a massive highlight. Even if England can't play one day cricket.
The whole experience of Hermanus reaffirmed my boycott of things from Japan, which I started when they manipulated the International Whaling again this summer.
I will need to concentrate on that a bit more, as soon after I looked at my new digital camera.
Which is a Fuji.
Bollocks.
I've checked into the place we're all staying tonight before heading off on safari. Another Rikki's dash across town (with my so overweight bag). I've only met one of the guys on the trip so far-Roger the retired guy from Canada, who seems quite nice. I wonder if the fact I'm sharing a room with him tonight means I'm the second oldest! Hopefully there'll be some party folk in the other 17.
I really have no idea when I will next get to a PC. So, till the next PC, take care of yourself.
PS PC I am using doesn't have word, so no spell/typing checker.
posted by Poll Star at
5:10 PM
1 Comments:
please tell me you are going to be doing some swimming with sharks soon.
and remember: cages are for wusses.
T.
By
swisslet, at 12:30 AM
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