Sperm Whale Trip Report 2025 - Trip 1
Dominica Island, Caribbean
January 16 - 22, 2026
January 17, 2026. Day One.
We Have Whales!
We found a family of whales quickly and were in the water almost right away.
The guests smiles said everything… moments like this remind me why I do this.
Everyone was buzzing. Whales will definitely do that to you.
We had another encounter shortly after, this time with a baby.
Richard (one of our guests), got an incredible pass as the calf swam directly underneath him.
So close that there was no blue between them. That’s the dream.
After several really good encounters, things quieted down.
We dropped the hydrophone, listened, and then headed north in the direction the sounds were coming from.
And we waited… And waited.
Eventually, we spotted blows in the distance.
We found more whales, a decent-sized family swimming together.
Our first group of swimmers jumped in and were treated to an unexpected bonus: pilot whales swimming behind the sperm whales.
I’m not sure what the pilots were doing. If they were hunting, they quickly moved off once we entered the water.
Everyone was on fire seeing them.
Pilot whales can be bad news for sperm whales though, when a large pod moves in, the sperm whales often leave the area. I’m hoping that won’t be the case this time.
Our week is just getting started.
We jumped back in for another encounter. The whales began swimming off very slowly, and although we normally don’t follow whales when they move away, they were moving at such a slow pace that we followed slowly behind them… and I’m glad we did.
Most of the whales eventually dropped down or moved off, except for four that turned back toward us and began rolling and playing.
They stopped swimming and just rolled and played together. It was awesome.
We hit the holy grail of sperm whale encounters on day one.
Magic happened. We were given some truly special moments to capture photos and video. This is the stuff dreams are made of, and our friends had an absolutely epic time.
Can’t wait for tomorrow.