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A very good morning to you all !!!! (( and now it’s already afternoon as I’ve been out skippering my Hippo boat almost the whole day )) CAN you believe it’s August already ??? We had some passengers on the 06h30 WHALE WATCHING trip this morning , Amanda has been coming to St Lucia for the last 3 years JUST to go WHALE WATCHING with Danie , and every time bringing new family and friends with her to South Africa Berno did the 06h30 trip this morning, ( Berno is Danie’s relief skipper ) , and has been skippering the whale watching boat since the beginning of this season …even HE said after the trip that it was THE BEST tour this entire season ! Apparently the 5 or 6 Humpback Whales they saw were just breaching and performing non stop ! Maybe it’s because they knew it was Amanda’s birthday ?? Dear agents , friends in tourism and lodge owners and staff - - - - we’ve lately had many unhappy clientele , that come and swear at us in the office , hit with fists against our counters , because we cancel the trips - - - - Danie also had his share of throwing toys out the cot on the beach yesterday , but the biggest problem is that we are trying to satisfy our clientèle ,Danie will only shout and scream if there is any safety factor whatsoever ! Danie will never go out in dangerous seas , and the clients must please understand that we have no control over the weather and it can change bad from one minute to the next , we’ve been operating for tooo long and know how suddenly the winds can come up , or how treacherous the beach can be over Spring and Neap tides . Clientèle must please understand that we are very strict in our safety briefing , and they HAVE to listen to what the captains n the beach tell them , they give the briefing for the safety of the whole crew and not just for fun ! There is a very good reason why Marine and Coastal Management decided to grant the Boat-Based-Whale- Watching permit to Danie . He is sometimes also a super *&^ , but a skipper with the most knowledge , passion and care about passenger safety . (( Ja , I can safely say so , as being my husband , he HAS to forgive me - ha ha )) , but then please do understand if Danie decides the trips are not going out , there is a good reason for him doing so . AT THE END OF THE DAY , we don’t have ANY other means of income , the Hippo Boat and Whale Watching is our ONLY income , we have 22 staff members working for Advantage , they ALL have to be paid , and we DO want to operate as many trips as we can , so if we do cancel , it’s a huge financial burden on the company , we will never cancel trips just for ‘’because ‘’ … I still get the feeling there are people out there thinking whales swim on some calm dam behind the dunes , as some clientèle get very upset because they got wet on the trip , they ARE going to get wet , please ‘’paint’’ the picture of the whale watching trips for them as best you can , TELL and Inform the clients about all the negatives (( getting wet )) and if they THEN still want to go , they WILL then be the kind of clients that we DO want on our boats . We also had this lady on Saturday that got a panic attack as Danie was busy going out , she performed so much that he turned around to drop her off , as he turned to go back in a wave pushed the boat onto a sandbank and caused extreme damage on the one engine ! ALL trips canceled for the day ! Whale Watching is a high energy adventure tour , and if people are not up to it , they should rather not book and upset a whole boatload of eager clientèle . This client never should have booked in the first place , we now sit with about R80 000-00’s damage due to this incident …. IF and WHEN we DO go out , the whale watching is the best experience any client can have ! AND , I WISH I could have had ALL of you on my boat yesterday morning - we just had the most excellent trip and sightings ! I took wonderful photos of Hippo calfs , the Fish Eagle , Mangrove Kingfisher ! I say this with a lot of respect and humbleness – I AM a good skipper ! I KNOW WHAT people want to see and hear if they get onto my boat , and so is Berno as well , ENTHUSIASTIC about every tour , not just babbling away because we HAVE to , but because we WANT to ! We make sure that our clientèle return satisfied after their trip ! So far our whale count is standing on almost 600 , there are SOOOO many whales out there , OBVIOUSLY we can only count the whales that we see when we go out , on horrrrrrrible windy days plenty little walvissies going past which we can’t count . There’s been about 7 newborn calf’s spotted since 3weeks ago .
It’s good for us when we can regularly have feedback from
the clientèle and yourselves , if there are ANY problems whatsoever , we’ll
gladly listen and always try and better our service to you and your clientèle! |