Leaving port on a
powerful pleasure boat at dawn sounds idyllic. Tackling an 8 foot swell
however, changes your mind pretty quickly and with a 2 hour journey ahead the
casualties came thick and fast. The biggest Chinese guy I have ever seen lasted
15 mins before his breakfast reappeared and he spent the next 4 ½ hours talking
to a carrier bag, chameleon- like, changing from yellow to green and back again.
The rules of whale watching are pretty easy. Twelve or
fifteen boats, ranging from small fishing ribs to a huge naval tug, corral in a
circle about half a mile wide, some 18 miles off shore, just beyond the
international shipping lanes. Everyone is on the lookout for a tell tale puff of spray as Mr Whale pops
up for breath and with the first sighting a huge cry goes up and all hell
breaks loose as simultaneously everyone sets off at full speed towards the
unsuspecting giant.
I am sure that I have
read or heard of the blue whale’s ability to pick up fellow whales calls from
the other side of the planet that being the case, our little flotillas excited
reaction to his arrival probably scared him half to death.
If you are lucky enough to be aboard one of the closest, or
fastest vessels, you get to see the
crest of the back of this huge beast cruise gracefully through the waves during
the 3 or 4 mins it takes him to recharge before heading down to the depths for
another half an hour. If not, you charge all the same, resigned to the fact
that you will not be winning an international wildlife photography prize this
time, and hope you are in a more fortunate starting position for the next
appearance.
The grail here is to see, or better still, try and take a
photo or video of, his enormous tail as he dives, but the odds are against you.
Not only is the boat rocking and rolling as it powers ever closer, but also the
photographic vantage points are limited and the best ones have been reserved,
since we set out from port, by people who
guard them jealously.
Additionally, in this
instance, size really matters! My camera was purchased with a round the world
trip in my mind, robust, compact and multipurpose but certainly not
specifically for wildlife photography. Whereas every male Japanese passenger on
board has a telephoto lens like a downpipe on a bungalow with which they could
probably have seen the tail from shore, in fact one guy, who also had a tripod
and rucksack full of photographic gizmos, could probably have seen it from
Japan!!
We were quite lucky to have sighted 4 whales on our
excursion, two of which we were close enough to see without squinting, and,
although it won t win a prize, I got a two second video clip of a tail majestically
arch out of the sea
..........................
RESULT!!!! An awesome experience,
but I’m afraid that the technicalities of getting the clip on here at the
moment means that you will have to wait for the evidence.
At the end of the day I can liken it to watching a
Welsh forward, at the other end of a pre floodlight Twickenham fall over the
line for a try. I had no idea who scored or even what had happened, but I saw something
through the gloom that delighted me and remember it, cos I was there.
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