By great good fortune (and a little planning) we visited Puerto Madryn and Península Valdés for a second time in August; this latest trip happened near the beginning of the Southern Right Whales’ season there, rather than the end. And it was spectacular. We walked out on the long pier in Puerto Madryn, and the whales were within hailing distance. Best whale watching ever, we said. And then we took the boat out of Puerto Pirámides on Península Valdés, and the whales were so present, we hardly knew where to look. Spouts, flukes, jumps– even a rare, albino calf, swimming with its mother close to our boat near the end of our hour+ voyage. And then, really best ever, we sat on the beach at El Doradillo, feet almost in the soft, lapping waves and the whales seemingly within reach, as if we could wade out and touch them, as they swam back and forth. Whale kindergarten, our guide said.
Kindergarten, but the students were huge. We exercised our clichés all week, unfurled our superlatives. My chronicling daughter, for the first time, resorted to “too many to count” in her sighting log. The sun shone, the wind wasn’t too strong, we ate giant prawns while the whales lived off stored, almost-microscopic krill consumed months earlier in the Antarctic. We watched them out of the corners of our eyes through restaurant windows. Their roars and grunts were background rumbles as we walked on the sand. We felt self-congratulatory, we acknowledged our good luck, we felt small. 
And the whales were right there–right there! And they were far, far away. Generously present, this was still the tip of the iceberg. The rise of a broad, black back was a hint–a big hint–of the mass below. The shadow of a whale beside and below the boat was a genuine sea serpent.
We did not solve the mysteries of the deep. But we dabbled our toes in the shallows at the edge of the deep. We listened. We wet our fingers in the wake. Some of us caught whale spit on our faces. I could sit on that beach for a month.
And a short video (I’m still learning how to embed or attach–please let me know if this doesn’t work). Doradillo