Our day with the whales - by Louis

We saw the orcas didn't fancy a nibble
on the elephant seals today

We all went out in our muddy little car called Bertie to Punta Pirimides to check what time the boat we were going to take was leaving. Sure enough it was fine. We were going to take it at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. So we headed off on our one and a half hour journey around Peninsula Valdes.  Mummy says she spotted a tarantula in the middle of the road. So we all took her word for it and carried on.  

We went to the lookout point and there were some serious binoculars there, they were about 50cm long. Out of there we saw a family of orcas, they looked so graceful with all their spurts of water.  We thought they would go and have a nibble on the elephant seals but sadly they swam past in harmony. At least we saw them, that's the main thing. 

So we jumped back in the car and headed off to see the Southern Right Whales, and had one of the 10,000 cakes that daddy bought at breakfast, he got a special deal so I don't blame him.  When we got to the whale place we had to wait a bit for everyone to get their jackets on.  When we got to the boat, a tractor came and pushed the boat into the water. When we had got a little way out on the boat, we saw eight dolphins in the water swimming right up to us, it was amazing. We saw them jump out of the water a couple of times and once one of them got its whole body out of the water, and we got a little spray of water and now I know why there aren't many people in the water because it was freezing cold!  We headed off to the the whales.  When we got there, we spotted our first whale, it was a mum and her baby and there was another one to the right, the left, in front of us and behind us, we were surrounded, put your hands up!!

She held her tail there for a photo.....

They were amazing. Suddenly all their tails went up. That was even more amazing. The whale held it there like she wanted us to take as many photos as you want before slowly bringing her tail down and then it quietly went back into the cold water.  It was like the rear end of the Titanic slowly disappearing into the ocean. Sad story but anyway not for us. So the driver turned round and we went to see another one that had a seagull on it. They are supposed to annoy the whales and decrease the population.  The whale flicked up his head and the seagull flew away blowing a raspberry at us, well it was more of a squawk than one of them. He swam around like he was thanking us. But for what? 

We got really close to the whales, they are so gentle....

We had a little space at the front where we could hang
over to watch the whales pass underneath us

On the lookout for whales!

Then the lady announced that we had to go back to the beach. So we retreated back past the sticky-out rock, that looked like half golf course, half bird home, past the dolphins and to the tractor.  He pulled us in and we went to get some lunch.  

Then we realised we had no cash, so Daddy had to run to the ATM and get out money to pay for lunch. Meanwhile we were starving to death back by the beach with only one small packet of bacon tostadas to spare, they were gone in a couple of seconds. When Daddy came back, we went straight to a restaurant and ordered some chicken nuggets for us and Mummy and Daddy had squid rings, it was lovely. On the way back in the car, Daddy spotted a big black thing on the road so he reversed and we got out of the car with the camera.  We saw that it was a tarantula and a big hairy one too. Daddy was absolutely terrified, he asked me to put Frankie’s shoe next to it to compare the size, it was really massive. 

AAAAH!  Scary and hairy all in one bundle!

It was a great day, and probably the most “animal-adventurous” day in ages!

By Louis