Amazing Fish Soup by Duffelgirl
Within 3 hours, we encountered four sperm whales, fur seals, 100's of Dusky dolphins, albatrosses and more. I now understand why the tail of a whale seems so popular in photographs -this is all most people get to see! Not that I'm complaining.The large boat we sailed aboard provided state of the art video footage with buckets of information about the whales and other marine life. I learnt that the sperm whales are constantly on the go, munching plankton and giant squid. They have the biggest brain of all animals (9kg!) and can grow up to 20 metres long, weighing 36-45 tonnes. After 90 minutes of diving 500m deep, they pop up for air. Staying on the surface for 20 minutes, periodically blowing water through their blowholes and digesting their squid before diving again: 'there goes the tail' (click, click go the cameras), leaving the 'whale footprint'; a smooth puddle briefly made by the weight of the whale.
At one point we saw 3 whales lined up in a row - there was obviously a communication between two of the whales, a fair way apart from each other (under water they produce clicks and pulses that carry up to 10 km) because one swam towards the other, and they floated side by side. I would love to have known what they were discussing, perhaps, "bloody tourists will they ever leave us alone?" Seeing both tails lift and slide in unison beneath the ocean waves really was something, and I am glad I filmed it with my eyes and not through the lens of a camera.
On the downside, there were too many people like me who wanted to see the whales! There were two big boats load of tourists, and a helicopter made a noisy appearance at one stage - reminding me of a crime scene or a celebrity wedding with all the paparazzi, poor whales must be getting a complex, but they fare much better than their forefathers, who got brutally hunted by our forefathers.
**BETWEEN DECEMBER AND MARCH IT IS WISE TO BOOK WELL AHEAD** We had our trip cancelled twice before sailing, so leave a couple of days spare.
