Last week we finally managed to go whale watching in Kochi Bay from a place called Ogata. Our last chance to go this year as the trips finish in October until the following May.

As we paid our fee we were warned that the money would not be returned; we would be out at sea for 4hrs, but they couldn’t guarantee that we would actually see a whale.

The skipper of the boat was an elderly gentleman with a bent back and a big grin. He welcomed us on-board, gestured to a basket of faded life jackets and some benches on the foredeck that were sheltered from the splash of the bow wave by a tarpaulin and bamboo structure . We bunched up and sat tight as the fishing style boat chugged out of the harbour towards the clear sky, sun and smooth rolling ocean.

As usual in Japan I began to fill in the gaps of what I could actually understand and what I wanted to imagine. I had our skipper as an old fisherman who had turned his knowledge and boat to the pursuit of delivering whale watchers to their subjects. Yes, there was definitely a dialogue between him and the skipper of another fishing boat, indicated with ten fingers and that way. “Mmmmmmm”, I thought, “contacts from his old profession, ten whales out that way.”

An hour and a half went by I began to calculate that if we motored out to sea for two hours without a sighting it would take the same time to return. Maybe we would be unlucky.

Ahead were a few more fishing boats with nets out, groups of sea birds settled on the water around them. The skipped jabbered on the radio and altered our course. Then a more experienced whale watcher with a big camera and a cap with “Ogata Whale Watching” embroidered on it clambered quickly to the high seat on the bow. We all peered forward into the distance and “there they blew”, three high pressure spouts of water. I was astonished because until then I’d presumed that whales’ water spouts were exaggerated in the way that cartoon fishes blow bubbles.

 As we drew closer the skipper cut the engines, leapt down to the stern, put out a fishing line and bounded back up to the bridge like a man one third of his age. We got closer until we were within meters of the enormous, 10m long creatures. We could see their shape under water, “dekai”, “sugoi”, we gasped. Then with a flip of their submerged tails the whales dived away leaving three perfect round prints of flat water behind them. Minutes passed by until we once again saw the tell tale spouts some 300m or so away. We continued this whale stalking for further 40min with about 10 whales. In that time we also saw flying fish, a shark jump out of the water and the skipper caught a Katsuo (bonito).

The species of whale we saw where Bryde’s Whale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryde’s_Whale

5000円 to see these wonderful creatures on a fine day, worth every yen.

http://www.sunabi.com/kujira/