St. Lucia

During a boat tour

I looked to my right and was overwhelmed by the immense surface of the colossal mammal emerging from the salty Indian ocean water. Never in my life, have I been so close to one of the biggest species on earth. It lingered in the air for about three seconds and then dove back into the water leaving a gigantic wave, causing our boat to wobble.

The city of St. Lucia is situated in South Africa’s first world heritage site also known as the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. The Park covers 220 kilometres, from the Mozambique border to Maphelane. A city situated at the southern end of Lake St. Lucia. The village does therefore not only provides living area for 500 residents, but also for approximately 800 hippo’s and 1200 Nile crocodiles. Because St. Lucia is surrounded by the sea, it offers a great sighting of Humpback Whales as they migrate past the shores in June, one their way to Madagascar.

Before the Whale-Watching Safari on the boat

We decided to stay in St. Lucia for five days in order to fully enjoy the activities the village had to offer. Such as whale watching, boat tours and turtle watching. We stayed at a lovely Bed & Breakfast situated on the outskirts of the village. Our host, John, arranged a Whale-Watching Safari for us which was guided by Johan, his friend and a local fisherman. Johan told us that only “ the black people are allowed to take tourists on Whale-Watching Safari’s”. He was only allowed to take us fishing, so we could only spot whales during fishing hours. This was of course fine with us as we had never caught a fish before in our life’s and we were excited to catch a 40 pounds yellow finned tuna, which we as a matter of fact managed to do! But our main objective during the safari was of course to spot Humpback whales.

If you look closely, you are able to
see a whale emerging from the
water in the far distance

At first we were not entirely sure whether we would be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one or two whales. As the time passed, me and my dad both got sick as we were not accustomed to high speed boats. But after about an hour the whales started to emerge from the water. The Humpback whale swims close to the water’s surface and therefore jerk upwards at full speed as they perform a breach.

I assumed that the whales would stay at a considerable distance but this was definitely not the case and the whales would appear just 30 metres from our boat, which worried me a little.

Despite the fact, that I was feeling sick during the Whale-Watching Safari, I sincerely enjoyed this experience and it was amazing to see how these massive bodies leap out of the water, enjoying the crisp fresh air.

I was feeling a bit sick :)

After the Whale-Watching, our host [from the Bed & Breakfast]
prepared the yellow finned tuna, which we caught during the day, for us