A COUPLE watching whales from a sailboat got a close-up view when a southern right whale soared out of the water off Cape Town and landed on their boat, snapping the mast.
This species of whale navigates by sound and has poor eyesight meaning it may have simply not heard the sailboat, which had its motor off, The New York Post reported.
“Our boat's engine was off and so the whale just didn't know we were there," Paloma Werner told the BBC.
"We were just the wrong boat, in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Ms Werner and her partner, Ralphm first saw the whale in the distance and spent an hour watching it.
"It appeared about 120m away from our boat and then it went under the water again,” she told the BBC.
"A few moments later, I saw it resurface just 10m away.
"Suddenly I heard my partner shout and when I looked around, I saw the huge thing breaching on to the deck.
"Instinctively, I took cover as the mast came crashing down. I saw my partner, Ralph, dive for cover behind the yacht's wheel. Then the whale slid down the side of the boat and back into the water.
"As soon as I realised that we were unhurt, we checked to see how much damage had been done.
"Luckily, we weren't taking on water so we started the engine and headed for shore. I saw the whale reappear further away.
"When we got back to land, I realised how lucky we were to have survived."
Comments
After reading this news article, I am quite astounded as that is a rare case where whale could come so near to a sailboat and even crashed on it! It is kind of hilarious but it also points out some issue worth us to look at, that is human beings are endangering the animals' habitat.
It's reported that the whale which crashed on the sailboat is one type of whales that navigates by sound. Hence, it could barely notice the sailboat which had its engine off. Luckily, the couple did not get injured and the whale are also not hurt. The whale was unhurt because the sailboat was quite small compared to its size. However, if it was a big-sized ship, let say, a steamship or cargo ship, the life of the whale might be at stake!! The question is should we blame the whale for being so reckless and senseless or the human who break into the living place of other inhabitants in the earth? The sad part is human, as we all know, the most selfish and timidest creatures ever always put the blame on other parties. As a result, we continue our mistakes and never learn from them.
This problem is getting more serious each day. Habitats of animals are destroyed, leading to extinction of species. In illustration, global warming causes the global mean temperature to keep on increasing. This warms up the sea water and causes the ice glaciers at the North and South poles to melt. As a result, polar bears cannot survive as more sea ice that they depend on to move from one place to another place and hunt disappear. Another example includes the killing of shark in order to obtain their fins. Shark's fins can be sold at a high price because it can be served as a luxurious meal, favoured particularly by the Chinese.
In short, are we always the smartest creatures on earth? Think about it. All the time, what we are doing actually jeopardise our home-the earth. If we continue to kill animals mercilessly and deforest places hastily, we are actually digging our own graves for ourselves. Therefore, we should really do so deep soul-searching and don't do anything that will make us regret later. As the saying goes, "look before you leap".
The shores of Cape Town and the Western Cape of South Africa abound with whales from August to October each year because these massive mammals migrate from the Antarctic to mate in the warmer waters of South Africa. There is ample evidence to show that this particular whale was being harassed by a rubber dinghy as well as the sailing vessel which probably accounts for its action in breaching alongside the sailing boat, both of which kept coming closer to the creature. They are very strict regulations governing the approach of whales in force in South Africa to prevent this sort of occurrence.
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