May 16 - Dolphins and Seals

We had thought about doing the walk through the deep forest that we had to skip yesterday due to muddy conditions, but it would have meant getting up very early. We gave the notion about five seconds of thought and ditched the idea. Besides our not wanting to get early, there was no guarantee that the road would have become passable with just one day of dry conditions, and Liz had no contacts in the area to give her guidance. The other tours are two days ahead of us.

So, we headed out for our first scheduled event of the day promptly at 9:00 a.m. – dolphin and seal watching at Plettenberg Bay. Jason, our guide and skipper, walked us through the safety procedures and helped us get in the boat. There were 13 of us plus Jason. The launch mechanism was a tractor that went fast and shoved the boat on a trailer towards the water. The tractor then stopped abruptly, and by means of the First Law of Motion, the boat got propelled into the waves. Cheaper than building a pier! It was a brilliant, sunny day and I thought the waves were quite low. Apparently, they were quite high. Jason drove to one side of the bay, and we struck gold! There was a pod of dolphins (about a dozen including two babies) swimming through the water. For 20 minutes, they entertained us with their antics and their graceful maneuvers. Each boat is limited to 20 minutes in order to share the pleasure of seeing the dolphins.

From there, we travelled to the other side of the bay to see seals – hundreds and hundreds of them. Some were sunning themselves in the warmth of the sun; some were trying valiantly to scramble back up the rocks; some were swimming with their rear fins sticking up out of the water; some young ones were frolicking near the rocks away from predator danger – this was shark and whale territory. Seals make both a bleating sound like sheep and a braying sound like donkeys. These colony of seals is the fastest-growing colony in the world. The seals were almost wiped out by indiscriminate harvesting, but with proper controls, their numbers are climbing yearly.

The return to the beach was pretty much the reverse of the launch. Jason chose a huge wave and gunned the engine. With a bit of a thud (we were all braced very well), we landed back on the sand. The waves were getting higher, and all excursions for the afternoon were cancelled. Our timing was perfect.Read more