We went to Puerto Pyramide to go whale watching. The whales can weigh as much as 8 adult elephants (25-35 tonnes) and the females grow to be 15.5 m long with the males slightly shorter at 13.5 m long. We took a boat trip out to see them and in no time at all we found two whales playing beside each other.
They are huge beasts but seem to glide gracefully through the water. They arch their back and hiss out of their blowhole from time to time and all this preceeds them going for a dive. When they dive their whole body slips beneath the water with the faintest of displacement of water and their tail makes the slightest of ripples fan out. Sometimes they jump and when they do the sound is like a bomb going off just as it hits the water. They didnt seem too interested in jumping when we were there prefering to laze around and take in the sun.
After a while we pulled alongside a male and a female who were engaged in foreplay. The male, being the smaller of the two, makes all the moves. He rolls his body to show it off the the female while she sits impassively pretending to ignore him. From time to time he bumps her nose with his. Just to make sure she is paying attention the male occasionly slaps the female with his fin and slaps his tail to soak her. Our male didnt seem to be having much luck because the female looked bored even to me and after a few minutes of the male´s posturing she blew out her blow hole, flapped her tail and disappeared underwater.
She reappeared some time later and was joined by another two whales and the unlucky male. We were right alongside the four of them when the largest female blew out and the spray went all over me and the lads. Augh, whale spit. Not nice. Perhaps she was remonstrating with us for watching her prelude to mating.
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