Archive for November 8th, 2010
Whales, seals, penguins and guanacos, oh my…
08
Nov
After the incredible morning with the whales, we took off into the peninsula to see other wild animals. Driving on wet dirt roads, we stopped at several viewpoints. Elephant seals were fighting a 100 meters beneath us, and when we stopped at the Penguin site, i took out the 300mm lens only to found out i had to watch out not to step on them
Whales at Peninsula Valdez
08
Nov
After waking up to pouring rain, we started driving the 150km to our next point of interest. Halfway, we drove to the coast on a dirt road, and thru the open window (winds at 80km, rain…) we saw our first whale breeching 200 meters off.
70km later at Porto Pyramidas, we found out the port is closed and no boats are going out to see the whales. Maybe tomorrow, morning or evening, or the day after. Still raining.
Ran found us a ‘motel’ room with a big window to the sea, and we sat down and watched the whales jumping off the coast.
Early the next morning we took the first boat out in incredible sunny weather. The first whale and her calf were floating a meter off the boat and we had to back off not to run them over. Twice as big as the boat (wikipedia it; southern right whales), we followed them for the next 20 minutes, and then turned to follow others, which were breeching all around us.