Avis Macintyre

Monday's aerial whale spotting trip was a pure delight. Pilot Evan Austin took off from the Grootbos airstrip, which meant that we began the whale count from the Gansbaai side. To reach the sea we flew over swathes of white dune sand sculpted by the wind and the surrounding fynbos literaly glowed with all the flowering bitou (tickberry) bushes. Spring is in the air.

There were four eager pairs of eyes in the sky which probably accounts for why we saw so much, including four illegal vehicles and their tracks on the Plaat.

But back to business - four large white sharks were patrolling separate sections of the bay, a school of dolphins were gamboling in the foam, a seal was doing bollamakiesies just behind the waves and all this inbetween the exitement of counting whales. "There are two, no it's three - oh but there's a baby with them too!" Left and right there were whales - it was difficult to maintain accuracy. The Cessna circuled and dipped from port to starboard to give us all a chance to count and view.

Most of the whales, in pods of three, four and five were wallowing on the Gansbaai side of the lagoon mouth. According to Evan this is because of the chop on the sea caused by the wind direction. The wind was pumping at about 40kph, which made for a fairly bumby ride, a detail we mercifully were able to ignore - since there was so much more to focus on. The final count was 109 whales, but as Evan says, we probably miss about 50% - partly because we hug the coast and partly because the whales dissapear from sight completely when they dive deep.

The breakdown is as follows: from Gansbaai to the lagoon mouth we saw 78 adults and 5 calves and from the mouth to the new harbour (although there were none in Westcliff) we spotted 13 with five babies in all.

The whale watching service is brought to you by African Wings and bookings can be made by contacting Evan Austin on 082 5557605 of safari@africanwings.co.za. A special on whale watching flights is being offered at R1200 for two people.