The Whales are in the Bay – Watch them in Cape Town this Weekend

Bryde's whale

It's a good week­end, par­tic­u­larly this Saturday (provided the wind holds off), to get out to find the whales who are def­in­itely in False Bay, this week­end. And don't assume that you need to go all the way to Hermanus to do so, although, admit­tedly in Hermanus one gets a good deal closer to these gentle beasts, but the price you pay is hav­ing to battle the crowds in order to do so — even if it is the best land-based whale watch­ing site around.

The WWF and Greenpeace regard whale watch­ing in Cape Town as one of the top 3 places in the world to get 'up and per­sonal' with whales. There are three types of whales usu­ally sighted in False Bay — Southern Right, Humpbacks and Bryde's. These sea anim­als that are gen­er­ally the cumu­lat­ive size of around 10 African ele­phants can be pretty elu­sive and September has had very few days that are con­du­cive to sight­ing them, because of the wind ...

Southern Right Whale

We were up on Boyes Drive last week­end — a couple of days plagued by the typ­ical wet weather cold fronts that can drive through Cape Town dur­ing September. But we still man­aged to spot a Southern Right above Muizenberg. More inter­est­ingly, we stopped and chat­ted to the 'shark spot­ter' based up at what looks like a bus stop just east of Muizenberg.

She imme­di­ately poin­ted out the whale to us. Despite the poor vis­ib­il­ity, surfers were out en masse in the rolling waters below us, and the whale remained pretty much sub­merged, com­pletely ignorn­ing a cloud of sea birds that had ven­tured out to where it lay, chas­ing after a school of fish per­haps? The shark spot­ter explained that dur­ing the windy weather, for some reason, the whales sel­dom breach or do any­thing much that draws atten­tion to them. It's the calmer waters you're after if you want to watch a whale in action.

Southern Right breach­ing off False Bay

And how does she spot the sharks all the way from up here. Well, our shark spot­ter had a super deluxe ver­sion of bin­ocu­lars, but she was also armed with a pair of polar­ised sunglasses that cut out the glare to such a degree that you could have sworn the glasses were pre­scrip­tion, it was so much easier to see what was in the water below us. Had she seen any great whites lately? Yes, she does spot them and then lets the beach below us know, but her role isn't just pro­tect­ing the surfers, she's also here to pro­tect the rep of these huge sharks — the less often they are involved in attacks, the more people will cease regard­ing them as a huge danger.

Fish Hoek, Kalk Bay and Glencairn all lay claim to good whale sight­ing oppor­tun­it­ies. A couple of years ago a whale and her calf were in Fish Hoek bay on a par­tic­u­larly calm day, and we were lucky enough to be able to watch her rol­lick­ing with her off­spring. Even a couple of kayakers were allowed a little closer than the usual 300 metres that the whales gen­er­ally choose as their limit, with regards to how close they allow us humans.

Whale in Cape Town

In Kalk Bay you can hire an inflat­able boat to get out close to the whales, although you are instruc­ted to main­tain the legal 300 metre dis­tance. At Fish Hoek, Jager's Walk is great for whale view­ing, par­tic­u­larly if they're in close to the boulders. Otherwise, leave your car at Clovelly and head off along the road to Kalk Bay — the beach road often reveals the odd lucky sighting.

The coastal road between Fish Hoek and Simon's Town too has some beau­ti­ful spots, and there are gor­geous vant­age points along the road between Boulders and Smitswinkelbaai. On the Atlantic side of things you'll some­times get lucky between Llandudno and Bakoven, although gen­er­ally speak­ing whales prefer the warmer waters of False Bay.

You can also find whale watch­ing boat trips from Simon's Town, Hout Bay and the Waterfront. Better still, there are com­mer­cial sea kayak­ing trips from Simon's Town!

Whale Alerts!
For up-to-the-minute whale updates, phone the Whale Watch hot­line on 083 910 1028 or check in with Cape Town Tourism Muizenberg for whale sight­ings between Muizenberg and Fish Hoek — 021 787 9140.

Useful Links:
Cape Town Attractions
Cape Town Accommodation
Things to Do in Cape Town
Whale Watching in South Africa