Whale watching, Hermanus

On the Cliffs

On the Cliff Guest House
( incl. bed and breakfast )
Hermanus

Rates

Hermanus is an hour and a half from Cape Town
and an hour from Airport

Whale watching boats

There are currently 2 operators in Hermanus and several in Gansbaai.
The boats leave several times a day and usually the trip takes about 1,5 hours. It is advisable to pre book in season.
The weather does not always fit in to your schedule and we sometimes have guests who are only staying one night and have only a limited time to see whales. This is not always practical as if the sea is rough the whales stay away from the cliffs and it can be a very rough boat ride. We would recommend that you stay at least 2 days. Some operators will go out in quite rough seas where the boats are quite capable but not all the passengers find it pleasant.

Watching whales from the cliff paths

Image:Northatlrightwhale MMC.jpg

Look me in the eye and then we touch

Boat whale watching cruises

Boats leave from the harbor in Hermanus about 8, 10, 12, 2 and 4 o'clock. The trip lasts about 1,5 hours and costs about R400. The boats are relatively big and very safe with very experienced crews.

Hermanus whale watching

In season we count over 150 whales in our bay. Known as the whale coast.

The Southern right whale visits us from the end of May to the end of November every year. Whales continue to be seen until early January but in far fewer numbers.

They come to give birth and mate in the warmer and protected waters of our bay.

They seem to be curious by nature and will often pop their heads out of the water to have a look at the people watching them and then put on a display of enormous strength launching their bodies out of the water several times in succession to the delight of the crowds. Seagulls always seem to always be around to collect the somewhat stunned fish after the whales crash back into the ocean. Whales will often approach the whale spotting boats to within touching distance to have a good look and seem to have no fear at all.

In order to show off they will reverse up out of the water tail first holding their tail aloft like some huge banner for ages. One whale was there for so long we thought it had jumped and then landed face down in the ocean bed - stuck ! He wasn't; he was just the best tail waver we ever saw.

Depending on the weather they will laze about next to the rocks , sometimes touching the rocks and swimming in the kelp (seaweed) within meters of the cliffs. Other times they will put on stunning displays. We are not sure but the rougher weather seems to invigorate them.

Mating is an involved affair with the female selecting who she wants. We have witnessed a rejected male trying for hours to mate with a female who just rolled onto her back whenever he approached. In the end he was jumping onto her to try and get her to accept him. He left a desperate whale quite disappointed in the end.

Our local pilot who offers flights over the whales has witnessed interaction with dolphins, where the baby whale plays tag with the dolphins and ends up with a thoroughly irritated mother whale chasing the dolphins away. We have watched dolphins coming from a distance away directly to the whales, swim around and in between for some time and then swim away, who knows what interaction we witnessed, but it happens often.

We have also witnessed a whale calf swimming up to her mother, who was lying on her back, the mother folded her massive flipper around the calf holding her close.

Birthing is a lengthy and noisy affair. Often the female giving birth will be assisted by 2 other females. The one seems to help the female keep near the surface and the other one will push the baby to the surface when it is born to get it's first breath.

On the Cliff Guest House in Hermanus provides awesome whale watching opportunities. This unique Hermanus accommodation, where you can watch whales from your bed or private patio, has 4 stars and is a luxury guest house with magnificent sea views. Shark cage diving or shark based activities can be arranged and is an easy drive from Hermanus.

Hermanus has wonderful beaches stretching for miles and swimming areas with life guards. We can also arrange whale watching cruises, scuba diving, paragliding, horse riding on the beach, fishing, golf, quad biking, sea kayaking, etc. Walk from our front gate along the cliffs to town or the New Harbour and watch whales jump or swim sometimes so close you feel you can touch them or just sit and enjoy the stunning tranquility and beauty.

Whale information

Right whales are baleen whales belonging to the family Balaenidae. Three right whale species are recognized in the genus Eubalaena, while the Bowhead Whale—also a right whale—is placed in its own genus, Balaena.

Right whales can grow up to 18 m (60 feet) long and weigh up to 100 tonnes. Their rotund bodies are mostly black, with distinctive callosities (roughened patches of skin) on their heads. They are called "right whales" because whalers thought the whales were the "right" ones to hunt, as they float when killed and often swim within sight of the shore. Populations were vastly reduced by intensive harvesting during the active years of the whaling industry. Today, instead of hunting them, people often watch these acrobatic whales for pleasure.

42 Westcliff Road
HERMANUS
South Africa
Tel: +27 (0) 28 313 2806
Mobile: 083 486 5253

Email
onthecliff@telkomsa.net

Tourist travel assistance and
Distance Tables

Whale watching at
On the Cliffs
Guest House

We designed the guest house around the sea. From all the rooms you can watch whales, dolphins or seals from your bed or patio. If you walk on the lawns, relax in the pub, have breakfast in the dining room, you can spot whales. It is not uncommon in season for us to walk in and everyone is standing up watching a whale breach.
The dolphins seem to have no timetable and if you are lucky you can see them powering past the cliffs leaping out of the water showing incredible style.
Sometimes we are extremely lucky to see flamingo's flying past to or from the lagoon. We also have pelican's flying past looking very much like a flight of bombers in formation. The Cape Cormorant fly past in a single file for up to half an hour in huge flocks and when they land on the water to fish it looks like a huge washing machine. They have a rock in the bay where they spend the night and watching them land in single file is well worth it.

Land based whale watching

This is the only place we know of that it is absolutely unnecessary to leave land to see whales up close and personal. It is not necessary to take an hour and a half boat trip to find a whale you will see them while you walk, while you sit and have lunch at a seafront restaurant and if you stay with us you will also most likely hear them at night. They can make quite an eerie moaning noise amongst others, they also hit their tail on the water make very loud slaps.
Take a boat trip or plane ride and it will give you a different perspective .

Right whales are easily distinguished from other whales by the callosities on their heads, a broad back without a dorsal fin, and a long arching mouth that begins above the eye. The body of the whale is very dark grey or black, occasionally with some white patches on the belly. The right whale's callosites appear white, not due to skin pigmentation, but to large colonies of cyamids or whale lice.

Adults may be between 11–18 m (36–59 ft) in length and typically weigh 60–80 tonnes. The most typical lengths are 13–16 m (42–52 ft). The body is extremely robust with girth as much as 60% of total body length in some cases. The tail fluke is also broad (up to 40% of body length). The North Pacific species is on average the largest of the three Eubalaena right whales. The largest specimens of these may weigh 100 tonnes.

Right whales have between 200 and 300 baleen plates on each side of the mouth. These are narrow and approximately 2 m long, and are covered in very thin hairs. The plates enable the whale to feed (see Diet below). The testicles of the right whale are likely to be the largest of any animal, each weighing around 500 kg (1,100 lbs). At 1% of the whale's total body weight, this size is very large even taking into account the size of the whale. This suggests that sperm competition is important in the mating process.Right whales have a distinctive wide V-shaped blow, caused by the widely-spaced blowholes on the top of the head. The blow rises to 5 m (16 ft) above the ocean's surface.

Females reach sexual maturity at 6–12 years and breed every 3–5 years. Both reproduction and calving take place during the winter months. Calves are approximately 1 tonne (1.1 short tons) in weight and 4–6 m in length at birth following a gestation period of 1 year. The right whale grows rapidly in its first year, typically doubling in length. Weaning occurs after eight months to one year and the growth rate in later years is not well understood—it may be highly dependent on whether a calf stays with its mother for a second year.

Very little is known about the life span of right whales. One of the few pieces of evidence is the case of a mother North Atlantic right whale that was photographed with a baby in 1935, then photographed again in 1959, 1980, 1985 and 1992; callosity patterns were used to ensure that it was the same animal. Finally, she was photographed in 1995 with a seemingly fatal head wound that is presumed to have been caused by a ship strike. The animal was around 70 years of age at death.

Right whales are slow swimmers, reaching only 5 knots (9 km/h) at top speed, but are highly acrobatic and frequently breach (jump clear of the sea surface), tail-slap and lobtail. Like other baleen whales, the species is not gregarious and the typical group size is only two. Larger groups of up to twelve have been reported, but these were not close-knit and may have been transitory.

The right whale's only predators are the killer whale and humans. When danger lurks, a group of right whales may come together in a circle, with their tails pointing outwards, to deter a predator. This defence is not always successful and calves are occasionally separated from their mother and killed.