Whales!

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I set off for my 3 day whale watching trip alone. The route to the whale watching eco camp on San Carlos island goes through part of the Magellan Strait and when the weather is bad it can get really rough. Sarah was originally signed up for the trip, but then read one review which described the experience like spending 12 hours inside a washing machine - after much agonising she eventually decided that this wasn't for her.

Most of the first and last day was spent travelling to and from the island, although we were lucky to spot one Humpback whale on the way out and had a brief sighting of two Sei whales on the way back. The conditions to the island were considered 'perfect' - this is clearly a relative term as I think it would have proved too much for Sarah. One of our group of seven had to spend most of the journey outside (getting wet from the spray at times) and a couple of the others weren't feeling 100%).

The whole camp on the island is designed to minimise the impact on the environment, with everything raised off the ground on stilts and platforms. We slept in igloo like pods heated by a wood stove. Although this went cold by the morning the combination of a sleeping bag and thin quilt was surprisingly effective.

We had a great experience on the main whale watching day, first we spent some time with our one one Humpback before cruising around to see Penguins, a Leopard seal and some Sea lions. Then we moved to one of the feeding areas where we encountered two more Humpbacks feeding on the Sardines which are abundant in this area (Humpbacks in other areas more commonly eat krill). Over time the group became three and then four which stayed in the same area as the boat. At one point they surprised us all by surfacing right next to the boat and on another occasion they swam right beneath the boat!

After lunch we visited a glacier that comes down to the sea before returning to the feeding ground and reuniting with some of the whales from the morning.

On the way back to the camp we were lucky to spot a Sei whale, a type I'd not seen before. They're quite shy and hard to follow so we didn't get to see much more than the dorsal fin, but it was still my first Sei whale!

On the first night we'd learned how they catalogue the whales by visual identification of their distinctive tail fins so on the second night I went through the catalogue of approximately 150 whales and was able to identify the 7 Humpbacks that we saw on our trip.

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Comments

[Janet Borges]

12 hours in a washing mnachine
Hugh, What a wonderful experience this adventure I would have really enjoyed. Love whales Janet