The Cohen Family Adventure Summer 2011: Land Based Whale Watching in Hermanus

On Tuesday, August 9th, we hopped in the car and headed for the seaside resort of Hermanus in Walker Bay. Hermannus is a town known for the best whale viewing from land in the world. A cliff path stretching from one side of the town to the other, hugs the coastline for about 12 km giving whale watchers ample opportunities to study the gentle giants in the coves below or lolling just beyond the breakers. On a good day, we were told, whale watchers can get within 20m of whales cruising in the coves from a vantage point on the path or from one of the many rocky outcrops that hang above the crashing waves.

The whale seen most frequently in the Walker Bay area is the Southern Right Whale. The whales start arriving in May in order to calve and to mate in the shallow water. Humpbacks migrate through the region between May and December, while Bryde's whales are found slightly futher offshore all year round. Occasional sightings of Killer Whales have been made. Dolphin species which are also seen include the Heavisides dolphin, Bottlenose dolphin, and Common dolphins. Walker Bay is one of the favoured bays for Southern Right Whales to calve and mate. Between September and November sightings are practically guaranteed on a daily basis. We drove to Hermanus in the hopes that we'd have some land-based whale sightings of our own!

On the way to Hermanus we stopped at a beach along Gordon's Bay with big waves and an abundance of beach-combing opportunities. We collected natural sea sponges, beautifully shaped driftwood, and hundreds of sea shells. Just past Gordon's Bay we stumbled across another mainland colony of African Penguins at Stony Point in Betty's Bay. This colony is not well posted but is far bigger and more natural than the penguins at Boulders Beach at Simonstown. The area is quite large and the nests cover the entire area, some under the natural bush and some in "caves", some just seem to be totally unprotected and in the open. Watching the penguins make their way across land is a treat as they are very comical. The leaving and returning to land looks very difficult with the waves swirling the penguins around and onto the rocks and the giant ropes of seaweed creating barriers all around them - but the penguins seem to take it all in stride.

Living in the rocks at Stony Point are a large number of a furry, guinea pig-like creatures known as Dassies or Rock Hyrax. Signs say that the dassies closest relative is the modern day elephant - which is incredibly hard for all of us to believe. The dassies are quite cute and we enjoy watching them laze about almost as much as we enjoy watching the antics of the African Penguins.

When we finally make it to Hermanus it is late in the day and quite windy. There are other spectators along the path, hoping to catch sight of whales from our land-based location. We see many whale spouts but they are quite far off. Each deep sea wave out in the bay begins to look like a marine mammal. Eric and Ari manage to see the flip of a whale tail but the rest of us leave disappointed. We'll have to try again another day...