Puerto Madryn is a very pleasant town. We went out early to look for whales in the same place as yesterday (El Doradillo Beach) and saw some straight away. Then we parked down at the beach and were very close to 2 or 3 of them and had a very good view. A tail came out of the water and made slapping sounds.
I was concentrating on taking photos of them, which was not easy, when I looked down at my feet and a penguin was standing there watching me. He was only a foot away from me, then he swam away in the sea. We drove to a beautiful headland, but couldn't see any more whales, so we decided to drive on to Puerto Piramides, also on the Valdes Peninsula, 98 kms from Puerto Madryn.
It was a sweet little seaside place where Paul and Charlie had already gone on a boat trip and seen lots of whales close-up, so we bought tickets for the next boat.
Colin and the group waiting on the beach for our boat and the boat being hauled out of the sea by a tractor.
There were about 40 other people on the Hydrosport boat, some of them elderly Argentinians, and we all got on the boat while it was on the sand, then were dragged down into the water by a tractor.
The boat was run by Julio, an American who used to live in Hawaii. We were out of the bay before we saw the first whales which came very close to our boat. There were one or two other boats there too, then one whale came even closer until it went right under our boat and came out the other side! It rolled over and then we could see an eye and one of its fins. We took several pictures of its tail.
They were medium-sized whales, about 30/40 feet long. Then we saw 2 together and one breeched and came right out of the water in front of another smaller boat.
It did it again, then another one, quite close to us, breeched right out of the water. It is quite unusual to see this and it is not known why they do it.
After about an hour, we headed back, having seen many whales including a mother with her semi-albino baby, about 2 or 3 months old. We also saw a few seals and sea lions on the way back. A great trip! We had lunch in Puerto Piramides, but there were lots of flies and dogs.
Back in Puerto Madryn, we walked along the front for a drink at a beach bar and met Wilhelm and Barbara. They have had the car roof jacked up and put in plastic windows. We had dinner with Colin, but it was indifferent with slow service. We leave tomorrow at 8am.
Distance driven 121 miles.
