Whale watching in Cape Town

Cape Town is one of the best places in the world to see whales, and one of the few where you can do it well without getting on a boat at all. This is what is here, when, and how to see it.

The three whales

Southern right whales are the ones everyone comes for. They are in False Bay from June to December, and they come extraordinarily close inshore: they calve in shallow, sheltered water, which is exactly where the Cape Peninsula's bays are. Peak numbers are September and October.

They are unmistakable: no dorsal fin, a broad black back, callosity patches on the head, and a V-shaped blow.

Humpbacks pass through on migration, mostly January to May, and they are the acrobatic ones: breaching, tail-slapping, pectoral fins the length of a small car.

Bryde's whales are the resident species. They are here all year, they do not migrate, and they are the whale you are most likely to see outside the winter season. Less showy, but genuinely local.

When to come

• June – August: southern rights arriving, building through the season
• September – October: peak southern right season, mothers and calves close inshore
• November – December: southern rights leaving; the last good weeks
• January – May: humpbacks on migration
• All year: Bryde's whales, plus dolphins and seals

If you have one week in the year to pick, make it late September.

From land, for free

This is the part most operators will not tell you: in peak season you do not need a boat.

The False Bay coast road gives you a continuous elevated view over the water, and southern rights sit within a few hundred metres of shore. Kalk Bay, Fish Hoek, Glencairn and Miller's Point all work at sea level. Cape Point and Clarence Drive give you the panoramic version.

Bring binoculars, park somewhere with a view, and give it an hour. On a good October day you will see whales.

From the water

What a boat adds is scale and proximity. A southern right alongside a nine-metre boat is a different experience to the same animal seen from a cliff, and you also reach things the coast road does not: Seal Island out in the middle of False Bay, and the Boulders Beach penguin colony, which holds over three thousand African penguins.

Two honest caveats.

We are not a licensed whale-watching operator. Boat-based whale watching in South Africa is a permitted activity with a restricted number of licences, and holding one allows an operator to approach whales closely. We do not hold one. What that means in practice: on our charters we do not approach whales, and if they approach us we stand off, cut the engines and let them.

No sighting is guaranteed on any boat, licensed or not. Anyone promising you whales is selling you something.

If close-approach whale watching is specifically what you want, book a licensed operator; several work out of Simon's Town and Hout Bay. If you want a day on the water in whale season with a real chance of seeing them alongside everything else the bay offers, that is what our family day and private charters are. Our Wildlife Charter runs the bay with exactly this ethic, built around the seals, penguins, dolphins and seabirds that we can promise to go looking for.

What else you will see

Common and dusky dolphins move through False Bay in large pods. Hundreds of animals at once is not unusual, and they surf the bow wave. Cape fur seals at Seal Island year-round. African penguins at Boulders, and occasionally in the water well away from the colony.

Practical notes

• Book a morning. The south-easter builds through the afternoon in summer, and calm water makes spotting far easier.
• Bring more warmth than you think. It is colder on the water than on the shore, in every month.
• Bring binoculars even on a boat.
• Take sea-sickness tablets an hour before departure if you are unsure. Watching the horizon for whales is the exact activity that brings it on.

More on picking a month in our guide to the best time for a boat trip, and on the bay itself in Simon's Town.