Right whales: Hermanus, Península Valdés and Cape Cod Bay

Right whale watching is the one branch of this sport where the best seat is often on land. Southern right whales spend the austral winter in shallow, sheltered bays — Walker Bay, Golfo Nuevo, Logans Beach — because that is where they calve, and those bays have cliffs, promenades and viewing platforms along them. In South Africa the law reinforces the habit: without a permit, nobody may go within 300 m of a whale, so the cliff path and the permitted boat are the two legitimate ways to watch.

Two species, two completely different stories

Southern right whale (Eubalaena australis). Found right around the Southern Hemisphere between roughly 20°S and 65°S, feeding at high latitudes in the austral summer and breeding in low-latitude bays in winter. NOAA Fisheries puts it at 43 to 56 feet and up to 176,000 pounds, with a lifespan probably similar to its northern relatives — at least 70 years. Populations around South America, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia are the well-studied ones, and several have recovered strongly since whaling stopped around the 1960s. This is the animal every trip on this page is about.

North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis). Up to 52 feet and 140,000 pounds, endangered since 1970, and down to fewer than 400 individuals on NOAA's most recent published estimate, with roughly 70 breeding females. It is legally untouchable: NOAA regulations forbid approaching or remaining within 500 yards — about five football fields — of one. Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, the water the Boston and Provincetown boats work, tells visitors plainly to stay at least 500 yards away, and notes that right whales cruise Cape Cod Bay and the sanctuary in March and April. If a boat encounters them in spring, the trip stops and backs off; see Cape Cod and New England. You may be lucky enough to see one. You cannot book one.

What you are looking at

A right whale has no dorsal fin, a broad black back, short paddle-shaped flippers and a huge head carrying knobby patches of roughened skin called callosities. They look white because whale lice colonise them; each pattern is unique, and it is how researchers keep the studbook of a population. Bellies may be black or irregularly blotched white.

Behaviour at the surface is the reason shore watching works. Right whales breach, lobtail and wave a flipper for minutes at a time, and they skim-feed with the mouth open and the rostrum out of the water. They feed on copepods — tiny crustaceans strained through baleen — which is why they are slow, fat and coastal, and why whalers found them so easy.

Where and when

1. South Africa (Walker Bay)
2. Península Valdés
3. Victoria, Australia
4. New Zealand (occasional)
5. Cape Cod Bay (North Atlantic)

PeakGoodPossibleOff

Southern rights follow the austral winter: they feed in the far south in summer and calve in shallow northern bays from June. The North Atlantic species runs on the opposite calendar and is not a tour species.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
South Africa (Walker Bay)	Off	Off	Off	Off	Possible	Good	Peak	Peak	Peak	Peak	Possible	Off
Península Valdés	Off	Off	Off	Off	Possible	Good	Peak	Peak	Peak	Peak	Good	Possible
Victoria, Australia	Off	Off	Off	Off	Possible	Good	Peak	Peak	Good	Possible	Off	Off
New Zealand (occasional)	Possible	Possible	Off	Off	Off	Off	Possible	Good	Good	Possible	Possible	Possible
Cape Cod Bay (North Atlantic)	Possible	Good	Peak	Peak	Good	Off	Off	Off	Off	Off	Off	Possible

Hermanus and Walker Bay, South Africa — June to November. The species' most famous shore site. A cliff path runs above the bay, the town employs a whale crier, and southern rights calve inside the bay within meters of the rocks. Boat trips sail from Hermanus, Gansbaai and Plettenberg Bay; see South Africa for the ports, the permits and the Cape Town logistics.

Península Valdés, Argentina — June to December. Golfo Nuevo and Golfo San José hold the Argentine calving population, and Puerto Pirámides is the only launch point; the municipality states that the boat season starts in mid-June and runs to December, that about 2,000 southern right whales use the area, that courtship groups are best from June to September, and that six certified companies hold the watching concession. UNESCO, which inscribed the peninsula as a World Heritage site, calls it the globally most important breeding ground of the southern right whale, with more than 1,500 animals visiting annually. The province of Chubut regulates the industry tightly: Law 5714 and its decrees cap the number of whale-watching permits at six, allow each operator one vessel on the water at a time, cap passengers at 70, set a minimum trip length of 90 minutes to stop rushed tours, prohibit swimming or diving with whales at any time of year, and forbid approaches to mother-and-calf pairs before 31 August. El Doradillo, near Puerto Madryn, gives the shore alternative. The detail is on Argentina and Patagonia.

Victoria and South Australia — June to September. Logans Beach at Warrnambool is the established southern right nursery in south-east Australia, watched from a platform above the beach; Victor Harbor and Encounter Bay hold the South Australian animals. Victoria's Wildlife (Marine Mammals) Regulations set minimum approach distances of 200 m for a whale and 100 m for a dolphin without a permit, and ban jet skis, hovercraft and remotely operated vessels from whale-watching tours entirely. Whale-swim permits exist only inside a limited permit area, currently Port Phillip Bay alone. See Victoria and South Australia.

New Zealand — occasional. Southern rights pass Kaikōura and appear around the subantarctic islands, but they are a bonus sighting rather than a product; New Zealand is a sperm whale destination.

Which boat — and whether you need one

Hermanus is the rare case where the free option genuinely competes with the paid one. The cliff path puts you above calving pairs, and in a good week you will watch longer from a bench than from a boat. The argument for the boat is optical: a permitted operator may work inside the 300 m line, which is the difference between a photograph of a bay with whales in it and a photograph of a whale.

How to read a right whale day from the shore

Shore watching has a rhythm worth learning, because it decides whether you stand on a cliff for twenty minutes or three hours.

Go early or late. Wind builds through the middle of the day in Walker Bay and at Warrnambool, and a chopped surface hides a black back that barely breaks the water. Low, raking light also shows the blow, which is the giveaway: a right whale's spout is V-shaped, two distinct columns from paired blowholes, and it hangs long enough to find with the naked eye.

Walk, do not park. A calving pair may stay in one cove for days, and the cliff path exists so that you can move to them; the whale crier's board tells you where the animals are. Take binoculars rather than a long lens if you have to choose. And give it a full tide cycle if the day allows — animals that are invisible at high water often come into the shallows as it drops.

Children do better here than on any boat: no swell, no queue, no fixed two hours, and a bench.

The rules

Official information

South Africa: who may approach a whale

Distance

The 2017 Marine TOPS Regulations define harassing a whale to include approaching it with a vessel or aircraft closer than 300 m; only a permit allows closer

Permits

Boat-based whale and dolphin watching permits are issued for a period not exceeding 10 years, renewed annually against permit conditions and a code of conduct

Law

National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act — Threatened or Protected Marine Species Regulations, Government Gazette 40876 of 30 May 2017

Advertising

It is an offense for a non-permitted person to advertise or offer whale-watching services

Code

The permit code of conduct sets approach protocols with minimum distances and maximum speeds

Source: Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. From the official source; double-check before you go.

The pattern repeats wherever right whales calve. South Africa sets 300 m for everyone except permit holders. Chubut province limits the whole Valdés industry to six permits and one boat per operator on the water at a time. Victoria sets 200 m and bans personal watercraft from whale watching outright. The United States goes furthest with its 500-yard exclusion around the North Atlantic species. None of these are guidelines an operator may weigh against a customer's expectations; they are the conditions on which the boats hold their licences.

What it costs

Two hours on the water at Hermanus is about $96. A full day out of Cape Town, transfers included, starts around $74 and runs to about $217 for the version that includes the boat. Plettenberg Bay and Gansbaai sit between $76 and $143. Argentine and Australian shore watching costs nothing; Valdés boat trips are sold locally in pesos. Prices here are checked regularly.

Who should book what

Our call

Our call

Walker Bay in September

Peak calving, whales within meters of the cliff path, and a permitted boat available on the same day if the shore is not enough.

Skip it if Booking a right whale trip in the North Atlantic — the species is protected by a 500-yard exclusion and cannot be targeted.

Check Hermanus dates from $94.95

Right whales are the species where the rules are the story. They calve where people live, which makes them easy to watch and easy to harass, and every jurisdiction that matters has responded with distance limits, permit caps or both. Work with that: take the free cliff, take the permitted boat, and treat any operator promising a closer encounter as a warning rather than an offer. The other Southern Hemisphere winter whale is covered on humpback whales, and the wider region on Africa.