A whale waving at the watchers Photo hermanus.co.za

It's Such A Wonderful Animal To Watch

By Sivuyile Mangxamba

The sleepy coastal town of Hermanus bursts out of its seams every year as tens of thousands of tourists flock to one of the world's best land-based whale watching spots.

The 13th whale festival in Hermanus, 100 kilometres southeast of Cape Town, started on Thursday and ended on Sunday, attracting more than 140 000 visitors, organiser Glyns van Rooyen said.
"It is such a wonderful animal to watch... just think of such a big animal being able to lift its entire body, its just an inspiration to watch it," Van Rooyen said.

The sea mammoths have always come to this charming town, locked between a half-ring mountain reserve and the Indian ocean in Walker Bay, which is near the southernmost tip of Africa and at the heart of some of the best shore-based whale watching opportunities in the world.

The southern right whales are the stars of the annual festival which sees the cliff tops around the bay packed with spectators as the creatures cavort and leap within easy view.

Between June and December, before leaving for the Antartic, the southern right whales come to mate and a year later to calf.

Robert and Micheline Labeye of Belgium struggle to explain their addiction to whale watching, but they have visited South Africa five times and always come to Hermanus - just to see whales.
"We came here in May, we did not see any whales so we decided to come again now just to see whales," said Micheline. The couple was not not disappointed as many whales were spotted at the bay this weekend.

The whales come as near to the land as 50 metres - and as many as 70 whales were counted in the bay in one day this year.

Van Rooyen said the festival had transformed Hermanus, once just a fishing town, into a major player in the tourism industry.
"Hermanus has never been an industrial town... it was started as a fishing town 149 years ago," says Van Rooyen, adding that it would celebrate its 150th birthday next year.

It slowly transformed from fishing village into retirement haven, then it became a holiday town, and nowadays it explodes once a year into the whale watching capital of South Africa.

Wolfgang Rolf Schirmer, a German who lived in Namibia before moving to Hermanus 15 years ago, claims he was the first person to introduce whale postcards to this town.

He was never disappointed by his product as many tourists want to leave town with a souvenir of a whale.

Now half of the business in town is trying to curve a claim to whales.

It can be anything from a restaurant claiming best whale viewing spot in town, to souvenir shops selling metal earrings resembling the tale of a whale.

Whales on our doorstep - Photo Experience Paradise.COM

Other than the southern right whale, the bryde whale stays here all year round, but it is a shy one and difficult to spot as it does not show off like its cousin.

Then there is the humpback whale that migrates past Hermunus and cannot be seen from the land - only the serious whale watcher who goes on boat rides gets to see this one.

Many whale watchers describe their affection for whales in simple words - its "amazing to watch", "it appears to perform for us", "I can watch whales every day".

Now the challenge for Hermanus, says Tasneem Essop, provincial minister for environment and development planning, is to ensure that "everyone benefits from the festival".
"The whales are the biggest natural asset you (Hermanus) have... the festival is the model of sustainable development," Essop said at the opening ceremony of the festival.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=14&click_id=420&art_id=qw1096198201758A141

26 September, 2004