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Whale watching on the Wild Coast. In the late fifties, surrounded by slightly irritated Elephants sliding down sandbanks at Mana Pools in unknown numbers, as a six year old in the dark before dawn, I came to feel the mysterious power of mammalian life in bulk. Twenty years later, running the bulls of San Fermin, I felt the independence of wild life in major mass again. I can now say that riding a small boat ride for a few hours alongside a pod of whales leisurely swimming up the Wild Coast is the same kind of experience. The phone call from Rod of The Creek was unexpected to say the least. I had been back in Port St Johns for twelve hours and, before morning coffee, my hostess was asking me if I wanted to go out to look at the whales in Rod’s new boat?
An hour later, there were five of us heading out of the river mouth on the new, 7 meter, twin hulled rig. After a few years of experience in the Transkei, Rod seemed have made an excellent choice – we ploughed straight on through the surf, almost without hesitation and without getting damp, with only one stomach-tossing roll. I’ve watched single hull and inflatable boats run up and down the Umzimvubu surf line looking for a gap and fail, so maybe we had a good day. I’d been to sea in small boats just enough to be concerned about operations. And then the Wild Coast really is wild. In the two years I’d lived here, I’d seen sandbanks moved in storms, heard a few shipwreck horror stories and had walked just enough of the rugged coast to know that safety came first out here. However my concerns soon passed as Rod took us smoothly and efficiently out to sea and as the stunning view of the cliffs around Port St Johns became part of the horizon. And there were birds everywhere. I’m used to seeing flocks of seagulls and skua’s, but off the Wild Coast there were birds everywhere. Diving and floating, sliding around above us in packs or zooming low over the waves. And that was just the beginning.
As we hit the clean green water, up welling from the continental shelf just five kilometres off the Transkei coast, dolphins started appearing. Tens at a time. During the course of the five hours we were out to sea, there were times when there must have been fifty or so in view. These fools of the sea tear around like a bunch of drunken teenagers. Apparently they could at one moment be herding a ball of sardine, but then one would chase off after a nearby ski boats’ wake and the whole pattern would be lost. Rod switched on the fish radar and there below us were schools of sardine, a solid mass of fish that looked on the screen like a floor somehow floating in mid space.
And then around us appeared a pod of whales. Heading north, apparently following the same inshore current that drives the Sardine Run north each year. Having eaten their fill in the Antarctic, they were on the early spring migration.
Suddenly I realised that everywhere I looked there was a possibility of seeing a whale surface.
There seemed to be a pod between the boat and the coast, heading closer inshore. Seawards, there was a bunch of five or so, about 50 meters away, calmly surfacing for a breather every few minutes. Behind us there was another couple that seemed to be happy keeping their own company as they surfaced with a quick puff of exhalation mist and slowly inhaled before sinking smoothly. And in front were another four or five that seemed to be putting on a bit of speed, if the splashes they were making meant anything. Which, it didn’t, to me. I suddenly realised that animals to which I was simply a tiny irritation surrounded me. Many huge animals, many more small animals (including sharks!) and what seemed to be thousands and thousands of birds surrounded me. Lots and lots of life surrounded me. More than ever before: some immense and intent on their own needs; others tiny, part of schools of million upon millions of fish. They’d been doing this for millennia and I had no idea what was going on. I worked out that the whales surrounding us were the equivalent of a herd of a hundred or so elephant. It certainly felt that way, but more intense; as if the weight concentrated in each animal gave out that just more menace. They appeared before ones eyes, a quick puff of steam and looked at us with the calm air of a studied inspection. As they inhaled and enjoyed the sun, I got the distinct impression that they were examining Rod and his boat. Next year, they’ll know him. But that might have just been romantic. They might just be dumb enough not to know what’s going on. Certainly, they don’t seem to have the memory and enmity that Spanish bulls or bull elephants demonstrate. If a whale got it into its head to be pissed off about the Japanese and Northern European’s hunting whales again, there would be a lot fewer ski boats running passengers out for a look-see in Hermanus.
But still, this is the ‘kei and wonders never cease. It was a beautiful day, winter sun in the Eastern Cape not too hot, the calm sea that dark, clean green of deep water, the spectacular sheer cliffs a few kilometres away, topped with the small white house of Mtumbane and the Port St Johns prison. Travelling up the Port St Johns coast for the two or three hours with the pod provided a sense of nature that was a mixture of the power of the Pamplona Bull run and the silence and intelligence of a visit from an elephant. Set in a magic world of spectacular cliffs, emerald sea, clear blue sky and warm sun. The enormous size of a whale is hard to judge, even when one is out on the water above 20 of them. But when they surface nearby and you see and hear the strength of the exhalation, when you realise that the flat, calm, 10 meter wide patches of water stretching back behind the whale are the effect of a few unhurried flips of its tail, then you begin to feel the power. The ongoing sense that the whales are watching you is real. I’m told that if boats approach too close, they simply dive longer, with no apparent change in effort. After all, they’re used to travelling the entire planet, from birth, so what’s a few more hours under water?
Perhaps it’s the size of the experience that makes following whales so exciting. Going on water in a small boat is always scary. The Wild Coast, with its odd wave patterns, strong currents and isolation adds somewhat to that sense. Then you add the possibility that a 25 ton whale, about 25 Spanish fighting bulls or 10 African bull elephants worth, could, and often does, jump out of the water anywhere around you. Come up from a few tens of meters below with a few tail flicks and sometimes push their whole body out of the water. Just like flying fish, but bigger. Someone asked Rod how close the whales jump to the boats. Too close is apparently when you get wet. We didn’t see any in the air that day. But the very next day Rod and his lucky crew of visitors got to follow a pod as they jumped around thirty times.
But just sitting in the path of the migration was enough of a thrill. The hundreds and thousands of animals moving through this narrow belt, just off Port St Johns, was like sliding out of the way of running bulls, but more subtle. The odd, random, almost cunning way whales surfaced, just as you weren’t ready, was like watching elephant walking through thicket; sometimes there, sometimes invisible. Running back up the coast to Port St Johns as the sun dropped towards high cliffs surrounding the Gates of Port St Johns, we looked for the face of St John outlined on the Mount Thesiger cliffs, believed by some to be the reason for the name of the town. The nose and forehead of the prophet’s face soon showed up the whole outline. To the early Asian and European sailors passing down the terrible cliffs, rare beaches and rarer bays, finding the Umzimvubu River mouth must have been a real godsend. Kilometres of safe water in which to harbour and refit. In those days the river mouth was open to the sea. Seeing the outline of a religious personality dedicated to the safety of travellers would have been logical in the largest river on the coast. Today the return up the river is a bit more tricky. Deep water channels in some parts of the river are only meters wide. Despite my limited knowledge of the Wild Coast, I know that there are less than a handful of people in Port St Johns I would go to sea with. It seems likely that there will soon be more boats doing whale-watching runs. It can only be hoped that they operate as efficiently, safely and knowledgably as Rod. My first day, although it was an extraordinary event to me, was apparently nothing special. If I’m lucky, I’ll crack the nod from Rod and see if this could possibly be true. If you are in South Africa anytime between April and September, have a free long weekend and SABCTV forecasts good weather for the Eastern Cape and KwaZuluNatal, you may want to see if there is a spare place on the boat. Contact Rod Hastier at The Creek rod.h@mweb.co.za for more information. |
Doing Business on the Wild Coast
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Some images courtesy of the Jungle Monkey Backpackers and Mad Hatters Tearoom |
