animals were just incredible! The mothers were up to 16m long, and one hundred tonnes. Even the calves are 3 tonnes when born!! The sheer size of these gentle giants on it’s own is incredible!! They live for most of the year in the cold waters of the Southern Ocean, but travel up to warmer, calmer waters to breed and have their calves. After the calves are born the mother stays with them to suckle them and teach them how to dive, all in the safety of the calm waters before braving the big wide ocean!! All of this time the mothers don’t eat at all, and by the time they return to the ocean are literally starving! This also means that the mother is not strong enough to suckle the calf all the time, and when she wants to stop it she lies on her back with her flippers in the air, which is truly an amazing sight!! After hanging around the first pair for a while, the skipper set off to check out another pair in the distance. He said that it was very important not to hang around them for too long in case it

disturbed them, and it was very encouraging to hear that the environmental issues and the whale’s welfare were so important. At this stage I got down from my lookout point to give someone else a chance, only to find Hel struggling to take pictures as everyone was over at the side of the boat where the whales were, and being small she couldn’t see properly. So I took over as photographer, and Hel was in David Attenborough mode with the video camera!!

All in all we saw about five or six pairs of whales, we were just transfixed with the sights. One calf was very energetic, jumping in and out of the water and showing us it’s fluke, or tail, on a couple of occasions. The skipper explained that this was because he wanted feeding, but Mum was too tired, but finally Mum relented and turned over so he could get some milk, and peace was restored! Another calf was very curious about us, and came very