Waiting for whales

Uncritically, Marita and I listened to Noekie tell us that if we wanted to see whales we had to get up early in the morning and we could see them playing in the surf. So, next morning, we got up at O-dark:30 and sped to the beach in Mossel Bay. We got there, parked in front of the ocean and then it dawned on us: it was too damn dark to see anything! All the whales in the southern hemisphere could have been in Mossel Bay and we wouldn’t have seen them! What could we do — we just looked at each other, said, “Bloomin’ hell!” and burst out laughing. We sat staring at the ocean in the dark. Occasionally, Marita would get out of the car and look through binoculars. I think she was looking for the sun. After awhile, a long while in the freezing cold, we got out of the car and walked down to another parking lot to see if they might be there. It wasn’t as if we could see any better, but it was something to do. So we sat on the wall and stared some more at the ocean. The longest sunrise in the history of sunrises was that morning. We got there at 5:45 and it must have been at least 7:30 before we could see ANYTHING more than a foot in front of our faces. In the freezing cold, remember? Sitting on cold stone. A couple of cars drove up, a couple from India walked near us, looking as intently as we out to sea, and then those most hateful of people, early morning joggers, went back and forth in front of us. Them we could see. But no whales. After waiting in the dark for whales, and the cold, don’t forget, they didn’t show up. Marita went over to talk to a man in one of the cars; he and his wife live there and they come to the beach every morning. He reads his kindle while she walks the dog. He said he saw whales a week ago. Later, much, much later, we went to lunch at a restaurant on the beach and Marita tried to bribe them to call her when they saw whales. “Just yesterday,” our waitress said, “about 1:00 in the afternoon, we saw them just out there, blowing and breaching. It was wonderful!” I seriously considered not tipping her. She took Marita’s phone number and she and the owners swore they would call us. We haven’t gotten the call.