Brazil probably isn’t the first place you associate with whale watching, but it’s actually a great place to see these magnificent creatures up close and personal.
You can catch whales in a few spots in the country, but it’s probably best to head to Santa Catarina on the southern coast. There, between July and November, you can see Southern Right Whales as they migrate north to escape the Antarctic Winter.
A sizeable number come very close to shore inside Santa Catarina’s small, half-moon shaped bays as they search for warmer and calmer waters to mate and nurture their young. On clear days they’re so close you can see them from the beach front.
For the best look at whales in their natural habitat you really need to get out on to the water. Nearby Praia do Rosa is a popular place to take a boat trip. Handily the town also has some great accommodation options like the Quinta do Bucanero hotel, which sits right on the Santa Catarina cliff top (there’s only 10 rooms, and each has an ocean view).
Local NGO Projeto Baleia Franca keeps track of all the sightings during the whale-watching season. Unfortunately there isn’t an English language version of their website, but you don’t need to understand Portuguese as the map tracking those sightings uses little pictures of whales (Projeto Baleia Franca which keeps an up-to-date chart with all the daily sightings of whales).
Here’s a piece about whale watching in the USA that we posted in July: Mark 30 years of the whaling ban by watching whales in New England
Written by insider city guide series Hg2 | A Hedonist’s guide to…
