Day 39 December 18th 2006, The real Whales - Peninsula Valdes

The real tourist attraction at Puerto Madryn is Peninsula Valdes not the runaway Welsh, although we will be visiting a Welsh village later in the week to compare their Welsh cake to that of my Auntie Pat´s.

The peninsula is home to a vast array of wildlife with the main attraction being the Southern Right Whales that visit the bays during October to December to breed. Being a little late in the season we didn´t expect to see any on our boat. After nearly 2 hours of waves and seagulls we had almost given up hope when the boat veered quickly to port (left) accelerating towards the coast. There in the shallows of the bay were 2 Southern Right Whales. 100m or so out the Captain cut the engine and the Whales slowly edged their way towards the boat until they glided magnificently by about 10m from the boat. To add to the occasion two more Whales soon appeared and curiously checked out all the boats who had followed us in.

In all the excitement I even manged to get some decent camera footage, not quite worthy of the next David Attenborough series though.

After half a bbq lamb we visited an Elephant Seal colony, so called due to appearance of the males with their short trunks and the fact they can weigh up to 4,000kg. An interesting fact the Elephant Seal can dive up to 2,000m and stay there for 2 hours looking for its favourite food Giant Squid.

Peninsula Valdes

Not having seen enough wildlife we were treated to a visit to a small Magellanic Penguin colony, the comical little chaps only too happy to pose for photos just a few feet away.

2006 has been a particularly good year for seeing the old Whales after seeing Sperm Whales off of the Azores earlier in the year.

Highlights: Southern Right Whales