Flying the sky

This Sunday Hanneke arrived, a little jetlacked and jetbored after she left the Netherlands on Friday night.... so we had a lazy day :)

On Monday we went whale watching, which was the best whalewatching ever! Unfortunately I didn't bring my ioad, so you have to wait untill I am back to see pictures and video's.... but basically we saw whales all the time! There were many mums with calves, teaching them how to clean themselves : with hitting their tail on the water.... some were breaching, but a lot were playing around in the area we were... we would just observe one couple for 15 minutes and would then go to the next.... I think we saw about 20 in total, but the special bit was that they all played while we were watching :) A mother whale is pregnant for 11 months before she gives birth to her calf that will weigh between 1-2 ton......The will stay with their mum for a year, who will feed them 600 liters milk a day.... that is an awfull lot of milk!

These whales are from the following day from the air.....

The following day we went flying :) Because Hanneke worked for 5 years at swig in Utrecht, she got this as a goodbye and thank her present....and I had to go with her :) We went with a lovely elderly couple, and our 20 year old pilot, who started flying when he was 17... his mum brought him to his lessons, while he was not allowed to drive, but he could fly solo :) 

It was a great experience! We flew to the horizontal waterfalls, which are formed naturally by the change in tides. They were surrounded by hundreds of small lovely islands with deserted beaches....

we had a stop in Cape Laveche where we had morning tea. We had nout two hours to explore this beautiful place with red rocks, white sand and a blue sea.... I photographed the dutch flag :) We went for a quick swim in the warm sea and were a little disappointed to leave after 2 hours..... But the way back was even more special...we flew among the coast and saw about 25 whales ( a group of nine swimming together), dolphins, many turtles and a manta ray! But the most special was that I was allowed to drive the plane for about five minutes :) That was super fantastic great!!! I could go a bit up and down, no loops ;) But you really could feel the wind :) Unfortunately he wanted to land himself ;) But the total was an unforgetable experience!