DEAD HUMPBACK WHALE UNFOLDING TALE-REMOVING A GIANT- BOULDER BAY, BALLITO - DIARY20100818 - PART 2

#humpback #whale
Today we will park at the parking at the well known Hops because that is where I parked on the 18th of August in 2010. I actually came to the beach that day by chance because I was curious to what the situation was. I didn’t know that the plans to remove were set for that day. My daughter are accompanying me again and we are having a lot of fun.
When I parked here that day, I noticed a lot of people from the rural areas were arriving in small bakkies and other vehicles and were carrying portable containers and knives and so on. I parked here because there was no parking available elsewhere closer to Boulder Bay. It was clear that there was a lot of opportunism surrounding the whale.
It is some distance to walk from here and I took the road and was hoping to see the whale soon. A lot of people were walking towards the Humpback carcass. Eventually it came into view and the truth was revealed. The whale looked much different from what I saw on the 14th of August. The black skin was gone and all that was visible was the creamish coloured blubber. Its position was slightly different, the sea has moved it around. The other huge difference was of course all the activity. There were a lot of people sitting right on top of it, trying to get whatever they could get off from it and others were queuing up for an opportunity to do the same. There was a man in Zulu traditional clothes on top of the whale and it appears that he may have been a Sangoma.
While I was watching it and taking photos, a group of dolphins came by close to the shore and some jumped up and it was obvious that they were curious as to what was going on. I have often seen or heard of dolphins that associated themselves with whales. Dolphins have even assisted whale calves that get stuck behind shark nets. I have made another video that shows how dolphins came to look at the newly born Southern Right calve at Sheffield Beach.
While all of this was going on, the machines arrived. Two bulldozers and an excavator arrived. A lot of planning was taking place and the excavator was moved into place to be as stable and secure as possible.
A huge crowd gathered all along the promenade and the local traffic police was also present to ensure that everything went smoothly as far as the people were concerned. I picked out many people from the crowd with my camera as there were so many interesting people and press people present and they were staring at this process with huge anticipation.
The excavator started to dig into the carcass right about at 3pm and it then lifted these huge chunks of blubber into the receiving Bulldozers which were then transporting it off the beach and dumping it into a bin that was placed there for the purpose.
Some of the blubber was also dumped on the sand close to the exit of the beach and close to where I was standing. This was so that the people who came could have an opportunity to get there hands on this. Till today I am not sure exactly what the purpose was of collecting this, as it didn’t look very edible to me and the carcass was definitely in an advanced state of decay. What was also obvious was that the blubber was like rubber and very difficult to cut. People were sharpening their knives on rocks in an attempt to get it to optimum cutting quality but it was not easy.
In between I took more photos of the people and of others with cameras. The rocks around the whale carcass became white with the washed-up decaying blubber and the water was also contaminated with it.
Somewhere on the beach a lonely bored boy was playing with some soccer balls that were in a plastic bag. The 2010 Soccer World Cup that took place in South Africa was a few months in the past and the soccer balls were still in the colours of that event.
I guess it was all over another half an hour later or so. I have fond memories of this event. We can also pin it in the history of Ballito. Whales do die from time to time. Most of the time they are probably devoured by predators before they can get to the shore and in some cases they actually wash up and leave a beautiful story behind of what nature is all about.
Easy Jam by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (creativecommon... incompetech.com...
Artist: incompetech.com/
Geographical Positions (Copy and Paste Geo into Google Earth Search to see the location): SHEFFIELD BEACH, BALLITO, KWAZULU-NATAL GEO: 29.490252°S 31.251639°E
BOULDER BAY, BALLITO, KWAZULU-NATAL GEO: 29.538721°S 31.221555°E
HAWKINS PARKING, BALLITO, KWAZULU-NATAL GEO: 29.542992°S 31.217168°E
CLARK BAY, BALLITO, KWAZULU-NATAL GEO: -29.541483°S 31.217661°E
DEAD WHALE SPOT, BALLITO, KWAZULU-NATAL GEO: 29.539922°S 31.220433°E
SOURCES:
[1] www.whaleroute....
[2] COURTESY: SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM, CAPE TOWN
All of this work is of my own unless otherwise stated.