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Whales & tourists crowd Walker Bay
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The much-anticipated whale season has arrived. Each year, southern right whales travel hundreds of leagues from Antarctica to the warmer waters off South Africa's Western Cape coast to breed. Then the sleepy town of Hermanus comes alive with whales and tourists.
For five months of the year, this town becomes a nursery. Hundreds of Southern Right whales make the arduous journey here to the sheltered Walker Bay.
"They came here to give birth and also mating for the next season,so now they are busy giving birth also mating up until end of October. By the end of October some of the males would go back to the Antarctic ocean,leave the mothers for training and nursing," whale crier Erick Davalala said.
A large part of Walker Bay has been turned into a sanctuary for the whales. Out there, they get to do what whales do best: lob-tailing, spouting, and breaching.
"They’re breaching sometimes to make communication. They’re breaching sometimes to scratch themselves because when you see a southern right whale, a southern right whale has the callosities, then inside those callosities they've got some lice and they have to get the lice off of them because its itching them," Davalala said.
The whale migration to these shores is a unique natural event which also managers to draw in a large number of tourists.
It is one of the few towns in the world that guarantees tourists a whale sighting. And tourists were not disappointed.
"It's a beautiful site, especially when you see the whales jumping out of the water breach and you so close to them. It’s like you’re really part of nature," a tourist said.
"It's really regarding as the best place to see whales even from walking along the coast so we've just been walking along the path and quite spectacular animals and that they not spotted very easily so its quite unique opportunity to do it," another tourist said.
Some whale pods have also made their way to the busier Table Bay in Cape Town. In the coming months, the calves will become strong enough to make the long journey home.
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