Whale Central

It is one of life’s finer pleasures to sit on the rocks in Walker Bay, with the tourist buzz of Hermanus at one’s back, and quietly observe the great pods of southern right whales coming in to show off new babies and generally rest up from their hectic Antarctic krill-feasts.

Every time my wife Jules and I go to watch the whales in the late afternoon light, a festival of quiet, exultant joy spreads over us like a magical fairy dust.
This species of whale is enjoying an amazing comeback from the brink of extinction. There are now more southern right whales off our Cape coast than at any time in the last 150 years. By 2006, well over 2 000 were visiting our shores each year, and their numbers were doubling every decade.
The whales – called ‘right’ whales because they were the ‘right’ whales to hunt – were down to a tiny group of 40 adult females off the South African coastline by 1940, when it was finally decided that they were to be protected. There used to be nearly 300 000 in the Southern Hemisphere before intensive whaling kicked in around the 18th century – and they are now up to a total of about 12 000, thinly spread across the southern oceans.

The whale-watching industry here is growing by 40% a year, into a $1-billion worldwide business. No small potatoes, even for the lobbyists in the ‘If it pays, it stays’ camp of conservation.
Land-based whale watching is becoming so popular in South Africa that it brings more tourists to these shores than the legendary Kruger National Park, which offers the Big Five of the animal kingdom. And where the whales go, the merchandising is not far behind. Hermanus is awash with whale symbolism, whale ‘stuff’ and very good whale art. A whale festival, a nearby estate that offers a superb Southern Right brand of wines and a string of guesthouses and restaurants that fly the whale logo – the sleepy little town of Hermanus has become Whale Central to the world.
Back in the 1830s, a wandering farmhand and sometime teacher called Hermanus Pieters ambled through the Heaven and Earth Valley and, more than likely, came to the top of the ridge. It looked good enough to graze his sheep. Old Hermanus moved in and started a coastal craze – some would call it a Whale Rush – which still continues today, nearly two centuries later. The town was named Hermanuspietersfontein in his honour until the postmasters whimpered for mercy. People just can’t get enough of Hermanus and its most famous residents that come to Walker Bay each year from June to early December. The whale watching here is world class – the clifftops edging onto deep sea gullies mean the whales come right in, sometimes only metres away from whale watchers.

You can’t walk for a block in the town without bumping into some kind of whale logo. And out on the rocks overlooking the sea, flocks of visitors and locals gaze out for hours in a reverent whaletrance, hoping for the sight of a fluke or a waterspout. One morning early, drove off to Gans Bay to join Dyer Island Cruises for a boat-based whale encounter. We came across a gathering of brindled southern right whales engaged in recreational sex. Pale Male, as we called him, was schmoozing a far larger female, turning and exposing his snowy belly to her. They began embracing one another with their flippers. Everyone on board laughed quietly. The whales peered at us briefly. Then the girl whale rested her head on Pale Male, forming an affectionate T-shape, and we were transfixed.

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