whales are eagerly awaited and much loved visitors in our bay

For 3 days the ocean and the sky have wept.  Not those  great joyous, life giving raindrops hurled at the thirsty African earth, but a slow steady leaching of sorrow, cloaking the whole peninsula in grey depression. 

We seem to be lurching from one awful event to another.  The miners who forfeited their lives to the deep dank bowels of the earth, the awful loss of the French Airbus, and the heartwrenching waste of the pod of whales that beached themselves in Kommetjie over the weekend.

My parents’ home looks out over both sides of our beautiful peninsula.  The everchanging False Bay which embraces our deli, and the wilder Noordhoek side where the resident pod of False Killer whales came to such a tragic end.

No one seems to know why they beached.  Some say the navy exercises in the bay last week could have something to do with it.  Long range sonar has been linked with whales beaching, as apparently it messes with their ability to sense magnetic north.  But the navy deny the use of any sonar or underwater manoeuvres, and go so far as to assure us that they have spotters out when they do exercises, to ensure that they do not unduly upset the local marine life.

There is also the possibility that the whales could have been ill, and exhaustive tests will be done to rule this out.

The general expert consensus, however, seems to be navigational error.  It would appear  that the gentle underwater slope of this particular coastline means that the whales may send out a sonar beacon, receive no pingback and find themselves in trouble before they realise it.  It happened a century ago when over a 100 whales beached themselves.  This time the number was 50.  50 beautiful, social, family minded creatures, who are no  more.

The pod functions as a family and where one goes, the rest follow.  This proved a massive stumbling block to the rescue attempts, as those whales that rescuers managed to get back into the ocean, turned around and re-beached themselves.  Desperate to stay with their pod, in their confusion they could not wait for the rest of the whales to be helped back into the water. 

From sunrise to sunset the effort to assist these huge creatures continued.  Humans and whales alike becoming ever more distressed.  The unaccustomed full weight of the whales’ bodies puts gargantuan pressure on their inside organs and the desperate flapping and cries of agony were unbearable.

Eventually defeat was admitted, and the decision to euthenase the distraught animals was taken.  Tears streamed down almost every cheek as the crack of each gunshot reverberated down the beach and the outgoing tide ran red with blood, for once not stained by the sunset alone.

The horror and helplessness hang like a pall over the coastal villages still, yet this morning, as stygian black gave way to dawn, the surfers were out to greet the winter wan sun, and they were joined by a huge, rollicking joyous school of porpoises, racing across the bay.

The sky still weeps, the ocean is still cloaked in mourning, but the sun rises, the world turns and Africa absorbs the sorrow, as she has for eons, and as she will continue to do. My heart will be a little slower to heal. 

Tags: Africa, whales

7 Comments »

Trackback URI | Comments RSS