12th post - Swimming with whales

Today coincidence and luck played a little in my favor: three weeks ago I booked a 'diving with whales' trip for today without knowing my timetable. Now it turns out that Thursdays are of course my busiest day at university, and attendance is compulsory here too... But everything worked: My one lecturer isn't present today and I didn't miss a course.

But now to the exciting part of the day: At 7:00 a.m. we drove to Le Port because we had to be there at 8:30 a.m. and there is an unbelievable amount of traffic jams here in the morning. We were there on time and quickly got to know the other participants. We quickly understood each other and chatted for quite a while until the organizers arrived. Then everything happened very quickly: a short introduction, handing out the wetsuits, fins and diving masks, backpacks in the car and off to the boat.

Ten of us sat there, including the two organizers, and chugged comfortably out of the harbor - then I thought "Phew, a bit boring...". But as soon as we left the harbor area behind us, my adrenaline level rose sharply - a boat like that is really fast :D And on the open sea with waves it's the opposite of a baby's cradle. So I held on to something with all my strength and tried not to look out of the laundry too desperately. Meanwhile, our guide stood casually on the edge of the boat (!) and explained to us everything about the rules of whale sighting. There are quite a few of them and it's all about not disturbing the whales as much as possible, which I thought was very good.

Pretty quickly we found the first group of whales with babies (by the way, a whale is called ' baleine ' and a baby whale is called ' baleineau ') and then we were off again in no time: put on the wetsuit, squeeze into the fins, put on the diving mask and the 10th Listen to seconds of instructions on how to get into the water correctly and what you need to pay attention to. Presto we were in the water and I realized: This isn't for me.

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't swim very well or that I don't particularly like swimming and that I'm afraid of water (yes I know, I picked the perfect activity :D). The whole thing combined with the rush to not lose the group and at the same time cause as little water movement as possible... I panicked a bit and decided pretty quickly to swim back to the boat. Our captain was already waiting for me there and helped me, which was really nice.

It was clear to me that I could enjoy the whole thing ten times more if I stayed on the boat, even if I didn't get as close to the animals.

In fact, it was the best decision for several reasons:

1. I basically got a private whale and boat tour from our (not exactly bad looking) captain

2. I saw more whales than the people who were in the water because unfortunately they didn't manage to get close to the whale fast enough. During this time I saw around 10 whales, including several mothers with children and two males who were fighting

3. I was able to tan and take photos

So all in all, maybe it wasn't quite what we were hoping for and we were unlucky with the whales, but at the same time I was very lucky with everything the whole day. And I'm proud that I managed to listen to my body and didn't force myself to do anything that wasn't necessary. Nobody said anything and everyone understood completely - a positive experience :)