Peninsula Valdes: Wildlife Spotting

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Day 150 – Thursday 16th February 2006

A Swiss couple, a Polish guy and myself hired a car for the day to go and see some of the wildlife on Peninsula Valdes, so come 8am we were at the offices of the hire company collecting our chariot for the day, a Vauxhall Corsa.

One of the main reasons for going out to the peninsula was the hope of catching a glimpse of killer whales. In the north of the peninsula at Punta Norte there is supposedly a 3% chance of seeing them on any particular day. Quite how this percentage is worded out I have no idea, but thats what it is.

At this particular place (when they make an apprearance) they can be seen riding the high tide waves up onto the beach – thus purposefully beaching themselves – while snatching a baby sea lion from where it lays and riding the next waves back out to sea with lunch.

As the whales only do this type of hunting at hide tide we needed to coincide our visit with it. On this particular day high tide was at 11am, perfect timing for the 3hr drive from Puerto Madryn. The distance wasn’t that great but the roads were gravel and we had been warned that accidents frequently happened on these roads, therefore we took it easy, not wanting to die for the sake of a 3% chance of seeing a killer whale.

After some careful driving (not by me, I was asleep in the back!) we got to Punta Norte and made straight for the beach with the hope of seeing some baby sea lions get eaten. The sea lions must have known something we didn’t though as they swam happily in the sea without a care in the world. At least they had a 97% chance of not being eaten, and they seemed satisfied to play the odds.

As the tide gradually receeded it became obvious the sea lions had won their gamble and lunch was sometihng else for Willy this day. We began to make our way back to the next point of the trip when we pulled over and walked 10 minutes to the next beach along. On this beach we were able to get right up close to the sea lions without needing to stand behind the fences. As we watched them, they retreated to the water and began to look right back at us.

Then the crazy Polish guy (who reminded me of Avid Merrion) stripped down to his shorts and dove into the sea with the sea lions. It seemed a pretty good idea so the rest of us jumped in as well. After a little skepicism on the part of the sea lions they began to get more confident and eventually were swimming around us not more than 2 metres away. Unfortunately the water was too cold to stay in it for any great length of time but it was definately a cool way to spend some of the afternoon and it made the day one to remember, rather than just ordinary.

After the swimming wedrove to the next point but there wasn’t much more to see apart from penguins so we carried on to Puerto Piramides where there was a nice beach and some bars to have a beer, before dinner and driving back to the hostel.