We’ve just returned from a week in southern France where we were lucky enough to take a three-day trip into the Mediterranean with an organisation called BDSF (Baleines et Dauphins San Frontieres – or whales and dolphins without frontiers, for those whose French is even worse than mine).

BDSF is a non-profit organisation established to give people the chance to see these incredible animals for themselves, and to contribute to the study of the cetaceans of the Med in the area off the south of France, where there are quite high concentrations of whales and dolphins, and they offer several trips a year to tourists interested in seeing these incredible creatures in their natural habitat.

We saw a number of groups of Striped Dolphins on the three days we were at sea – out of the 9 or 10 cetacean species I’ve been lucky enough to see over the years I’d say these are the prettiest. Most of the pods we encountered were interested in the boat (an 8-berth yacht) and stayed around for up to an hour, allowing those who wanted to to get in to the water with them – but remember these are wild animals, not toys or captives in theme parks – they don’t come close to swimmers although they come within inches of the boat and you can get splashed by them as they jump out of the water. We also had close encounters with several Fin Whales (the second largest whale, after Blue). It’s worth noting that the crew were careful about how they got close to the whales, their main concern being for the well-being of the animals – and they did not remain close to those that we found inshore, for fear of attracting attention of other boat users in the area. We found several out in the open sea, though, where there were no other vessels, and were able to sail alongside one large individual for over 15 minutes.

The trips are not for those who expect 4-star luxury – we were on the boat for over 60 hours without touching terra firma. Sleeping conditions are of necessity cramped – there are 3 tiny cabins and a sleeping platform in the galley area, but you can sleep on deck if you want to. There’s one shared toilet and keeping clean usually involves going for a swim followed by use of the fresh water shower at the rear of the boat. In effect, it’s rather like camping but without the tent pegs. Food is simple, good and there’s plenty of it.

For anyone in the European zone, cheap flights to Marseille and other southern French airports make this a fairly inexpensive way to see these beautiful animals – bear in mind that once you’re on the boat, you can’t actually spend any money.

We’ll put a trip report with photographs, covering the mammals, fish, birds etc. that we saw during our stay (we also had a couple of days around The Camargue and the Alpilles area of Provence) on our website, avengerpenguins.com in due course, but if you are interested there is one more trip this year – a big one, lasting 8-days and going out as far as Corsica, so why not have a look at the BDSF website itself on www.bdsf.net – I think there may be a couple of berths left.

Let me know if you have any questions that you think I can help with. If this sort of thing appeals to you, then it may be something to think about for next year and this is an organisation that deserves support. I certainly hope that we'll be going back to visit them one day.