Whales in Camps Bay

Camps Bay is known for its incredible beaches that attract many a gym toned body, its trendy cafes attracting many customers in search  of cocktail sundowners and of course its incredible views of the sun setting over the sea.

Luckily, if you’re planning to holiday in the area, the many Camps Bay rentals are built specifically around the vast sea views. This allows for many hours spent looking out for another Camps Bay attraction, the whales that frequent the sheltered bays during whale season. If you’re a whale lover and like to spend hours watching for whales breaching, you might want to book your Camps Bay holiday accommodation somewhere between May and December as this is known as whale season.   

Whales communicate by means of sonar, like dolphins, their clicking, grunting and whistling sounds can be heard for kilometres under the water and even above the water. Lobtailing, where whales slam their tails against the waters surface and breaching, where whales lift themselves above the water, twirl and fall below, are also thought to be other means of communication.

Whales tend to migrate south during the summer months, where the supply of krill is abundant and swim into the South African waters to breed and give birth. The average gestation period is 12 months, where the calf is born tail first, unlike other mammals.  At birth, calfs measure between 5 and 6 meters long and by adulthood, which takes 10 years to reach, the males measure 15.2 meters and the females measure larger at 16.5 meters. The average lifespan of a whale is 90 to 100 years, so if you are revisiting Camps Bay you may spot some of the same whales you spotted on your previous visit. 

You can differentiate a southern right whale, the whale that visits South African shores by its distinctive v-shaped cloud of vapour, produced out of the whales’ two blowholes. This is formed largely by condensation when warm breath comes into contact with cold air.

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