Our only reason for coming here was to go whale watching! We nearly missed the opportunity to see them as we'd come at the end of the season, which is mid December here. We asked at the hostel, and he said we should see a mother and baby whale as it's still in the bay, waiting for its infant to become a strong swimmer before it sets off into the great ocean. That did give us some hope at least! We decided not to book the tour through the hostel as it was quite expensive. So in favour of that, we have to go to the national park ourselves to try and do it independently.

Dorms again ...
 
We arrived here mid-morning, so it was too late to it today. As we're only here for 2 nights, we'll go there tomorrow instead. We could only get a dorm here, as the private rooms were too expensive. We nearly got put in separate dorms, so had to be moved from a 4 bed to 6 bed dorm, which wasn't too bad compared to Rio! After dropping the stuff off, we went for a wander around puerto Madryn. It seemed like a nice place. It has such a long stretch of sandy beach with a pier and fairground for the kids.

We walked up to the pier and had a look out for whales and dolphins. Sometimes you can spot there from here if your lucky. No luck for us though, we didn't see any of them. Once we got to the end of the pier, they had a big sign board up about whales, with interesting facts about them too. We hung around for a little longer and still couldn't see any whales. On the way back, I heard something moving in the water down below. I could also hear a noise, so we looked down and I think it was an elephant seal we saw, it was huge! That was a pretty cool spot by me!

While we walked back on the sidewalk by the fairground, we came across a shop selling chips, so stopped off for some . We're just craving a good fish and chips with salt n vinegar! We got salt, but no vinegar. Not bad as chips go though. We went back towards our hostel and found a bakery with delicious home made cakes, so got some for later. The hostel were cooking a seafood dinner for everyone, so we signed up for that tonight and were served king prawns, scallops and salad, the food was good and was locally caught too!

So the next day, we decided to do the whale watching independently. We just took a bus to the national park, plus we had to pay an entrance fee too. The place we went to see the whales is Puerto Piramides, which is about an hour away from Puerto Madryn. There are around 6 companies that you can do the whale watching with, and each company offers the same trip. 

To watch whales or not....

When we arrived, the place didn't really seem that busy, probably due to the fact it was the end of the season . We started to ask each of the companies if they were running tours for this morning. We were met with a lot of blank faces, and most said the whale watching season had finished, so they were not running tours. Gutted was not the word. We basically asked around all companies and none could give a definite answer if there was a boat leaving today or not. The best we could hope for was that one company said they may run a tour this afternoon if they get enough people, but that was just a maybe.

Upset and disappointed, we decided to hang around until the afternoon and hope for the best. There is only one bus going back to Puerto Madryn, which leaves at 4pm. They told us if they run the tour, it would leave at 2pm, so it would be really tight. There could be a possibility we would miss our bus back, but it was something we were willing to do if it means we get to see the whales. While we waited, we had a wander around the beach area. It seemed like a quiet, sleepy town, there wasn't really much to do either . We went for lunch, then afterwards went back to their office. They had a few people who signed up, so they said they would run the tour! We got lucky, very lucky! 

Whale Watching 

We headed into the office and got our life jackets on, walked to the port and board the boat. I suppose we were lucky to be going, and also that there were only a few of us on the boat. There must have been 10 of us maximum. We have come to see a mother and baby southern right whale. I hadn't heard of this type of whale, so didn't really know what it looked like, I was just excited that we could see them hopefully. We sailed out quite quickly to a spot that they had been seen recently.

Then our driver slowed right down and stopped in the middle of the ocean. We waited there a short while, then he spotted the orcas. There was a mother and it's baby was swimming along beside her. We weren't that close at first, so it was hard to spot them . Then the driver let the boat slowly drift over to where they saw the whales. We searched around us for a while but couldn't see them. We waited patiently, then the baby jumped out of the water playfully near us. It happened so quickly that we couldn't get pictures of it jumping out, but just seeing it was enough. We also saw the mother swimming along beside the baby, it was huge. It's only when you're in the water, that you appreciate the size of these marvellous creatures.

The baby was quite active and kept jumping about, the mother not so active, but it did flick it's tail up a few times. They would stay around near the boat for a few minutes, then we wouldn't see them for a while. Then they would reappear a few minutes later. It seemed like a game that the whales liked playing. The reason the whales are still here is that the mother is waiting until the calf is strong enough to swim out into open waters. While it's not, the mother waits in the bay with the calf, teaching it how to swim and waiting until it grows stronger . It won't be long before they are ready to swim into the deep Atlantic Ocean. Most of the other whales that were here, have left already, along with their calfs. So we have been extremely lucky that there is still one mother and baby left in this bay.

We did manage to get some pictures of the mother flicking it's tail up. However, we didn't get to see the mother fully jump out of the water, only the calf. We did also get to see them blowing air from their blow holes. They do this in the breathing process, whereby they forcefully expel air, along with mucus and carbon dioxide. We saw the mother and baby one last time before our driver said it was time to go. I absolutely loved seeing the whales, it's the first time we've both seen a whale and it certainly won't be an experience we'll forget any time soon. On route back, we also got to see a whole group of sea lions, basking on some rocks in the water. You'll be glad to know, we made it to the bus stop just in time to catch our bus back to Puerto Madryn, much to our relief.