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October 13, 2002
Two nights ago there was an unusual thunderstorm in the early hours. Lightening, sudden heavy showers, without the normal squalls – and thunder-claps reminiscent of the highveld rather than our coast. I did not hear them for I slept through it all. Arlene was awakened by the thunder. . . and couldn’t get to sleep that night for the noise of the whales.
“They were moaning,” she said. “I’ve never heard such a noise. I thought one of them had beached itself and the others were calling.”
Moaning? Or was it just whales singing? Or stimulated by the storm? If so, what were they telling each other?
As always, whenever I raise questions, I can never find answers. Well, lots of answers, but they often contradict each other – and all of them are speculative.
It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, and the sea is perfect. Perfect in the sense that its clear blue is decorated with high, smooth, regular waves that rise up in green walls and smother the rocks with white foam. Perfect in the sense that this is a sea produced by lasts week’s North-westerlies, so that the water is clear and warm. It is the South-easter that turns our bay cold, pushing the surface water away from the shore and creating an upwelling of bottom water which the fishes love.
The whales, it seems to me, enjoy the North-westers. This morning there are lots of whales on the surface. A momma just below us is standing on her head wagging her tail while her child cruises around her. Then the pair loll on the surface like a large hippopotamus and a giant hippopotamus. From the front, their blow-holes look like the eyebrows of a hippo protruding above the surface at the level of their broad backs. The baby whale, or course, is bigger than the biggest hippo – and momma’s back seems as wide as a singles tennis court.
Suddenly two big whales, more than a kilometre apart (one opposite Kraal Rock, the other about opposite the Marine Hotel) jumped simultaneously out of the water; their arched backs both pointing east; their explosive splashes occurring at the same instant in the same pattern of spray.
Were they in communication? Were they dancing together? I thought not, for the one continued to leap, and the far one stayed submerged. But then they -and a third big whale - jumped together, and they frolicked for several minutes in different parts of the Bay. Does it mean anything?
I still have no idea, and no answers, as to whether they are talking to each other, or what triggers off the activity. I don’t even know whether they are more active in calm weather (it would appear so) or whether they prefer the “westerly” running seas or the “easterly” seas.
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