Whale-watching wonders!

It has been a desire of mine since coming to South Africa to experience a close encounter with a whale, to marvel at their size and majestic movement through the water, and to be captivated by their displays at the surface.

Last Saturday, I had my chance, as Andy and I travelled, almost to the most southerly tip of Africa and boarded a cruise to Dyer Island and surrounds, on a whale-watching trip.

Our boat was called, Whale Whisperer. It took about 20 people, plus a skipper, marine guide and video photographer.

Southern Right Whales have no dorsel fin and can be identified by their V-shaped expulsion of water from their blow-holes. I really tried to capture one in a photo - to no avail.

Another characteristic of the Southern Right is huge Callosities on their head and face. These are scaly, white areas of whale lice which form in the same places that hair forms on our head and face, with males having more callosities than females, particularly on the chin and upper lip, rather like a beard.

At one point, after the boat's engines had been switched off and we were drifting, a pod came quite close and rolled over and over each other, in a courtship dance - it was fabulous to see.

This is my photographic 'piece de resistance', a tail out of the water, known as 'sailing'.

We also saw lots of fins and 'spy hopping' which is the opposite to 'sailing', as the head comes out of the water. Their eye is very small in comparison with their head size, and not often above the water, so making eye contact with a whale is a very rare and special moment - yet to be realised!

Our friend Stuart had gone shark cage diving and this is an example of the type of cage he stood in hoping to see some Great White Sharks. Unfortunately, his trip was cut short due to rough seas, so he never saw one. We however, did see two shark fins approaching one of the many shark cage diving boats in Shark Alley, a swath of ocean running along the southern tip of Africa.

Dyer Island, situated in Shark Alley, is home to 40,000 Cape fur seals: they covered the rocks and filled the sea, swimming very close to the boat. They were so cute to see and hard to accept that many of them would become a shark's dinner!

The final leg of the trip was to a rocky outcrop where African Penguins are breeding. You can just see some on the left hand side of the light-coloured rock. African Penguins stand only half a metre tall and we have seen them much closer at Simon's Town, where there is a penguin sanctuary.

We bought a DVD of our trip which includes some wonderful footage of all of the above and more.