Today, Rob, Ruth and some other friends went on the whale-watching boat trip from Cotonou. It was a very eventful journey, but not in the ways we had expected…

This is the boat we went on, which is actually a small war ship (see the guns on the front?!). Decent enough boat, though, and a nice upper deck for viewing. Before leaving, we were all given travel-sickness pills – just in case – and the kids were all given life jackets, and enjoyed playing with the whistles:

We set off and enjoyed the view of the Cotonou shoreline as it got smaller and smaller. However, it soon became clear that the sea was a tad choppy – either that or the boat was not very stable (or probably both). Here are Rob & Ruth on the upper deck with our friend, Joanna from Scotland (this photo is also for her Mum, who is now a regular visitor to the blog – hello Joanna’s Mum!)

Within half an hour of leaving Rob, Ruth and basically half the boat were all throwing up due to all the rocking – a most unpleasant experience! As the round trip was about 4 hours long, that’s a lot of time spent being sick! We found the best solution was to lie down, so Ruth and I lay down on a ring of rope on deck and had a kip, waking only when prompted by nature for further overboard evacuations . Here’s Ruth looking extremely sea-sick:

(NB I have not modified the colours on this photo – she really was that pale).

Now, one might tolerate being incessantly sick on a whale-watching trip in exchange for seeing a few whales. However, today they were nowhere to be seen. At one point, one of the crew frantically started shouting out Baleine, baleine, baleine! and pointing into the distance off the port side. We looked and saw what could have been a spray of rising water, but as it was so far away and was all over in a couple of nanoseconds, it was hard to tell.

Well, we made it back, but very jaded (almost literally colour-wise). The whole event made me think of Jonah and his adventures – he may have had a tough time for disobeying the Lord, but at least he got to see a whale – and extremely close up too! Also, it was the whale that did the spewing, not him! (Jonah 2:10)

Nevertheless, if you’re not prone to (or bothered by) travel sickness and think you may be more lucky than us (NB we have a friend who did see a whale on a previous trip) then click here then click on Baleines (whales) for more information (and there’s even a photo of whales to be seen!)

Thanks for visiting!