Whales possess grace and elegance despite their enormous size. They have beauty and majesty although they couldn’t be included among animals with more standard or classic beauty. They come in strange shapes, they make eerie noises and they captivate us completely. Hermanus is a seaside town about an hour and half from Cape Town and is well know for its whale watching opportunities. Every year, between August and November, locals and tourists congregate to enjoy the spectacle of whales frolicking in the waves, a mere 20 metres away.
Southern Right Whales travel from their summer habitat in the sub-Antarctic, to the warm Indian Ocean bays in the Cape, to calf and mate. Hermanus is a great place to observe these magnificent mammals.
Every year, between August and November, locals and tourists congregate to enjoy the spectacle of whales frolicking in the waves, a mere 20 metres away.
Southern Right Whales travel from their summer habitat in the sub-Antarctic, to the warm Indian Ocean bays in the Cape, to calf and mate.
Hermanus is a great place to observe these magnificent mammals.
For instance, the bare-chested creatures can be seen as far away as on the beach fringed with mangroves. At the Kruger National Park they can be spotted swimming and playing in the waves. The usually streamlined shaped shoes they are wearing have hints of steam escaping from them. But this is just the beginning of their mysterious behavior.
Cape Town is a great place to observe whales.
Hermanus has become the new baby boom town of South Africa. This is where the Bathsheba frenzy struck in 1880’s, leaving hundreds of dead whales. They couldn’t find any one of their kind nearby, so they assumed the worst. It is highly possible that the animals wandered into town looking for a handout.
Since then, Hermanus has not only learned to live with whales, but also to enjoy them.
The first time I walked up behind a whale, it was February in Cape Town and we were on the roof of the old farm house at times caught in the trough of lightening. Almost every month there were smaller groups of whales visible in the harbour.
At the time, I was photographing whales so I went looking for them. But as often as I saw them, I saw them too, they were all around us, swimming around us as we walked along the shoreline gently touching the side of our heads. They were very curious and playful and they swam under our feet. They were bamboos.
And that was it. That was the last time I went close to a whale.
Why they should be able to swim in the cold waters of Hermanus is anyone’s guess. But they do.
As far as swimming goes, and assuming they are not blocked by people, the whales are certainly capable. They go in the opposite direction to the current so if you are swimming parallel to the shore with the current moving with you, they will swim faster then the current saying “hey, you got us”.
They appear to have a nice sense of direction and definitely by that I mean they are intelligent. While I was taking pictures they were swimming all around us and we were all swimming after them.
So there you have it. They are all around us and we are not. They are intelligent animals and a danger to us if we are not careful. Follow a simple plan of how to keep yourself safe and why they should be there.
Because we forgot to mention, carry gloves because a spare is not always around.
Because we should have had life jackets in the water when we went on fishing expeditions around the Cape Peninsula.
Because we are responsible Internet Internet Users and use spyware to manage our websites, we should be good Internet Users.
Because we choose to not fast track our Internet communications, we should use a good Internet accelerator, or indeed a great Internet connection.
Because we are looking to make money from sales, not from clicks, we should have a great site that is well structured, and ideally developed to be pay What We Need.
Because we are looking to make friends, not to waste our time, we should have a great photo opportunities and gallery system.
Because we are trying to create functionality, and not simply design an eye catching site for a few visitors, we should have a functional website.
Because we are trying to load more content onto our visitors’ pages, we should have a clean and simple design.
Because we have become so used to the technology of 24 hour Internet access, we can hardly wait until our next beach camping expedition when we hope to be even better acquainted with both the technology and the people that we meet.
After all,miraculous things happen on the Internet.
