Kayaking with Whales

The second part of our holiday was fairly extravagant (this is the beauty of both being employed, not having expensive hobbies and having no children! ;o)) and we decided to do a once in a lifetime experience sort of trip: Kayaking with Whales.

We went down to Punta Arenas and from there took a boat to a remote place in the Strait of Magellan. The strait is an area of complex currents and winds as the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean waters join here. Following a long journey we got to an "eco" camp that is being used as a base for whale watching and scientific research on Humpback whales. Humpbacks are migratory animals and they follow a pattern of feeding in summer (in cold waters) and mating or calving in winter (in warm waters). This means that the northern hemisphere populations and the southern hemisphere populations feed in different areas but it is possible that they may meet during the calving and mating season in the warm waters near the tropics.

A significant population - apparently more than 100 individuals - can be found in the strait between December and April as it is their feeding season, though not necessarily all at the same time.

To cut a long story short, the camp was lovely, from our tents / domes we could hear the whale blows when they surfaced  near the shore at night. When we went out at sea, they did not seem too bothered by the kayaks (they got close to us as we tried our hardest not to move while being surrounded by blows, tails and fins surfacing all around us, not to mention penguins and sea lions!).

As a comment, we can add that humpbacks seem to be very sensitive to noise and while they seemed not too keen on the boat that took us there (often swimming away from it, especially while the engine was on), the kayak made a much closer and much less invasive experience possible.

The best things about the trip

1. The incredible experience - worth every bit of pain (ie 10 hours on a boat)!
2. We met some very interesting people along the way (organisers, Yoga hotel in Punta Arenas, and other tourists)
3. It was being used to finance scientific research on the whale population.
4. The camp was really well thought out and definitely worth visiting just for the atmosphere (even without whales).
5. The low numbers of tourists (12max at a time)
6. A visit on kayak to the edge of a glacier, they said we were 800m from it... but based on the delay between bits of ice falling off the glacier into the water and the time the sound of the spalsh reaching us it can't have been more than 300m. In the photos it looks like we're much closer but that's simply because the wall of ice is massively high.

The worst things were

1. The often lack of organisation (which especially from a German perspective seems endemic in Chile - on the day of departure they almost left us behind because they did not bother to check the forms we filled in and also, some of us had wetsuits 5 sizes larger than required... very glad we did not capsize! :op) 
2. The fact that even people who are trying to protect the seas have a TOTAL lack of awareness of what their choices mean (tuna was served a couple of times in the camp and let's just say that the concept dolphin friendly tuna or the fact that its industry have some of the most destructive fishing methods was widely unknown or ignored). Tuna fishing video here for more info. 
3. We were also the first vegans they had encountered and while they were keen to learn, let's just say that for 4 days we involuntarily ended up on a low calorie diet... too much money spent on alcohol not enough on planet friendly food.

Some photos below:

The only thing we could not experience was the whale songs (as these happen during mating or calving and not so much in the feeding areas) - worth listening to in any case!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WabT1L-nN-E

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_sounds#Song_of_the_Humpback_Whale