The wonder of Whales
WOW!!!! and WOW again!!!!!
The southern right whale or Ballena franca austral is the most amazing creature I´ve ever seen. These splendid animals are mammals, migratory, are 15 to 17 meters long and can weigh up to 35 to 40 tonnes. Every year they travel thousands of kilometeres from Antarctica to come to the peaceful waters of Peninsula Valdez. On the news one day, they talked about them arriving this month, how could I have missed them??
Getting to Puerto Madryn from El Calafate meant 27 hours of continuous traveling on the endless Patagonia. After all those kilometers you get a bit tired of the same landscape, although pretty
From Puerto Madryn you´ll have to get to Puerto Piramides, a town nearby with only 300 inhabitants! The bay is beautiful and peacful and from there you take a boat that will take you to the whales
We were very lucky to find a group of 5 whales, one of them a female, in the middle of the mating process. Partner selection is made on a sperm level and not on a physical level. This means that the females copulate with several males, take sperm from all of them and then only the fittest will make it. Some males even have different types of sperm that they use at different moments of the copulations, for example a “wash sperm” is used at the begining in order to wash away competitors sperm. These males also hold a guinness record with the biggest testicles in the world weighing 1 tonne!
Sorry I´m making all of you nautious, but I am a biologist and I get very excited about these things 🙂
We got really close to them, only 10 meters, and every time they blew water from their backs we got drops of it. It was a magical experience and I was so happy I was giggling.
We satyed with them for more than an hour but it seemed like 10 minutes to me and I wished I could have stayed with them forever….
Tags: Argentina, Photography, Puerto Madryn, Simon Uribe, Travel, Whales
simonuribe@yahoo.com
Wow. Every single post from South America has been amazing!! I’m already thinking of how I can finance an extended vacation there!!
Yeah Amanda : that’s true 🙂 But are you french ?
Simon : I’m thinking that i dreamed this night that we were both back in Mainz (wow : am i trying to speak english ?) That was a little bit strange… I said :”but how it’s possible ? You were yesterday in South America and now here !” Your answer wasn’t so clear 🙂 Funny, isn’t it ?
Dude, holy crap that is an awesome whale picture you captured! Teach me – oh Great One!
– G
what an amazing display of divine beuaty, thanks for sharing
que locura, no habia visto mucho de esto, que envidia