These animals, 8 to 10 times the size of a bull elephant, are slow swimmers, reaching only 9 km/h at top speed. However, they are surprisingly agile and tend to show off in the following spectacular ways - often as close as 50 meters from the shore:

Hermanus is the only place in the world to have its own whale crier!

In 1992 the first whale crier, Pieter Claasens, was appointed in this job. Pieter retired in 1998 when Wilson Salakusana took over as the official whale crier. The number of whales spotted at each location, are noted on the sandwich board he proudly wears. The whale crier needs to be knowledgeable about whales, but says Wilson, "to be a really good whale crier, you must be able to give the community excitement." This Wilson sure does, because he is extremely popular with the tourists and most definitely the most photographed man in Walker Bay!

Wilson Salakusana does his rounds along the coastline between 10:00 and 16:00 from June to December. He is always willing to answer questions, give interviews and allow tourists to photograph him. "And things get really crazy," says Wilson, when he lifts his kelp horn and the now famous sound reverberates through the streets of Hermanus. He may also be reached via the Hermanus tourism bureau. So when you see a guy with a funny feather in his hat, blowing a weird looking kelp horn, it is the whale crier alerting everyone to the whereabouts of the whales. The feather, incidentally, is a whale tail.