I am much older now and have seen many more elephants on many occasions, most of them in South Africa, where I spend a lot of time as a mining consultant. I still think elephants are very impressive animals, but lately I have caught myself looking up when someone shouts: "Elephant !" more out of politeness than out of genuine interest. I hear myself thinking "oversized cows with misplaced horns", but at the same time I smile to the rest of the people and say "enormous animals, aren't they? Nothing like it in the world." I decided that -with age- the emotional impressiveness of youth simply fades. My wife, Estelle, says I am blasé; which is probably right on the mark. Still, an outrageous thing to say for someone who prefers to sit inside all the time reading books and simply refuses to join me on any game-drive. "Your business companions I could still sort of stomach, but those smelly elephants that shit more in a second than I shit in a week, no ways!" is always her retort when I tried to get her along for the umpteenth time.
Recently when I came back from a game-drive, (having seen my five hundred and forty second elephant) I found her in the bath. She looked up and smiled at me. She waved slightly with her hand at some blue-coloured magazine next to the basin. "Look, that will be nice !" she said. On the front cover was a picture of a breaching whale over the text "Tired of the BIG FIVE ? Check out the BIG TWO!". Ten small black elephant-silhouettes were pictured at the bottom of the cover. I forgot my boredom with elephants and protested that this was cheap rubbish. You cannot compare fish with stately animals such as the elephant, killing machines like the lion, prehistoric weirdoes like the rhino and clever predators like the leopard. "And we also go shark-diving" Estelle said "apparently there are many many Great White Sharks swimming around in the sea off Gansbaai." I hate fish, I hate boats and I hate swimming, but I could not help being delighted about Estelle's sudden desire to spend time with me outdoors. At the same time, she could not possibly expect me to swim with sharks ! She grabbed the magazine out of my hands and frantically turned the pages and pointed at a picture: "here you go down in a cage, safe as sitting in a bath !" and she read out loud : "..come eye to eye with the Great White Shark, more ancient than the Rhino, more cunning than the leopard and as a killing machine ten times more efficient than the lion. …" I raised my hand to Estelle to allow for the impact of what was just read to me. Was somebody out there reading my bloody mind? I left the bathroom in a hurry, shouting that she should try to imagine how much an animal 10 times the size of an elephant would shit.
Three months later we were sitting on the rocks in front of the guesthouse in Gansbaai looking at the rock dassies playing playing on the rocks opposite of us. It had been a very pleasant drive along the coast. We had a good lunch and we were simply happy. I tried not to think about the boat-trip of tomorrow, nor about the question whether one could buy sea-sickness tablets on a Sunday in what seemed to be a sleepy town. Estelle smiled at me, took my hand and squeezed it. I did not want to spoil the moment and swallowed my remark that rock- dassies are the closest living relatives of the elephant. We just sat there in silence, so taken in by these funny fluffy creatures that we only saw it when it had already passed us. Estelle squeezed my hand again, much harder this time and made some funny movement with her knees causing her to lose balance. I grabbed her, the rock dassies disappeared in all directions and the whale, just ten meters from us, came to a halt. (Estelle now denies it stopped, but I tell you, the whale stopped). The whale suddenly blew a forceful fountain in the air (Estelle now tells that we got wet, but that is nonsense) before continuing in a straight line to the other side of the bay. We followed it with our eyes until it was a small black dot that could have been anything. And then we became aware of many other black dots that could be anything. One of the dots betrayed itself by becoming a clearly distinguishable whale-tail that just stood in the air for a while for no apparent reason. More and more black dots became whales and several of them passed by our little place on the rocks, none as close as the first one, but all of them closer than I have ever been to a lion in the wild. All in all we saw eight adults and three calves. Estelle thinks that baby whales are "sooo cute", but a fish that at birth is already 5m long might be a lot, but definitely not "cute".
Sunday-morning I was delighted to see that the sea was as flat as overnight-ice. Smoothly and gently the boat left the small harbour of Kleinbaai and I relaxed. Three American fourteen-odd year old girls were sitting in front of me and I was pleased to notice that I could look over their heads towards the open sea. Boats are not that bad after all, I decided. I saw the last coastal rocks disappear on my right when the engine started to roar; I was pushed back in my chair and this gentle boat became a monster. The front of the boat did not stop bumping up and down on the waves, water flushed into my face over the heads of the girls who embarked on a hysterical giggling tour that would go on for the whole trip and I had my first burps. "Now darling, don't you puke all over those sweet girls", Estelle joked in Swedish. Joked ? Hell and damnation! This is much faster and rougher than any game drive.
That evening I could not eat and sipping from my glass of water I had to listen to what Estelle had to say about HER day. At dinner she was the only one that talked of the four other guests and our two hosts. The others simply did not get a chance. Our hosts listened politely. They must be hearing this for the humpty-dumpiest time, poor people, I thought to myself.
"We stopped at this shark boat and there was a shark in the water. They had not lowered their cage yet and there were three seals swimming around the boat as well, but the shark did not notice them and I was sooo happy for the seals cause the girl, she is a marine biologist, on the boat told us that seals are the staple food of the Great white shark. Can you imagine ?".
On and on and on she went: "…the girls in front of us were the first to spot these two gigantic whales in front of us, even the skipper had not noticed them, can you imagine ? So we stopped, cause you are not allowed to come close to the whales with a boat in a whale sanctuary. But the whales are not bound by those rules, are they now ? Cause they came within two metres of the boat. They circled the boat and even swam under the boat. I could almost touch them ! They came back twice, as if to say :goodbye and have a good trip. I was a bit scared cause they were so much bigger than the boat, but they are gentle you know." Estelle continued, telling how we sailed through the "Channel" between two islands and saw thousands of seals on the rocks, some of which jumped in the water to swim along with the boat. "They smelled a bit, but they were sooo cute !" ("Smelled a bit" ? There was a wall of stench right in front of my nose that I could touch with my hands and there in the "Channel" I came very close to indeed puking over the heads of the giggling girls.) She talked on about cormorants and penguins and how the shore looked so different when you were on sea. Suddenly she came to a halt, took a sip from her red wine and said to no-one in particular : "You know; I actually wanted to ask this marine-biologist lady on the boat about how whales shit, but I forgot. They must, eh, carry a lot of stuff inside, you know; where would that go ? I mean, would you see that on the surface?" The lady sitting next to Estelle pointed with her fork and said: "They don't. Not during the time they stay under the shore. Their feeding grounds are not here. Here they just mate, frolic and give birth. They don't eat for months. But that's fine, they have enough fat to last for a long time." The lady appeared to be a marine biologist. As a matter of fact, the whole table (with the exception of the hosts) belonged to the same team of marine biologists that was in Gansbaai for ten days to do some advanced research on whales in the Walker Bay whale sanctuary. I was so embarrassed, I could puke. Estelle however was not at the least taken aback and bombarded them with questions. Everyone around the table (including the hosts) became very animated and one went upstairs to get books and maps to point things out to Estelle. Soon we were invited to join them very early next morning on their research boat. Estelle looked at me with a worried look "If you feel sick, you can stay here, sweetie".
The next day with the biggest mug of coffee I could find in the kitchen, I placed myself on the rocks in front of the guesthouse. I saw twelve adult-whales and three calves. Two whales came as close as the whale of two days ago. I wondered why in these waters, marine biologists actually needed boats.