July 30, 2021 - Travel Day. I am Dominica Bound! Finally. This is our first time visiting this island, and I am so very excited (and nervous), about getting there. We are headed there to find sperm whales, a species I want to get to know better.

We are running two back-to-back trips this season, and as usual, before I head out on any trip, I am incredibly nervous but filled with hope. Hoping the weather is good, hoping the animals are there, hoping the trip runs smoothly. But, of course, our job is to get our guests out there and give them an at-bat at seeing the animals we all want to see. All we can do with nature is to get out there during the best time of the year for an opportunity to encounter them. Thankfully we have done an excellent job through the years to help our friends find the wildlife we are seeking out.

I wish I could say we had a perfect record, but sadly we can not. Nature is nature, and she will sometimes play cruel jokes on us. Sometimes it is the weather, and sometimes it is the animals. But we continue trying hard to help our friends have unique experiences with wildlife. And I love it; I love the thrill of the hunt—the hunt to see the animals, of course (photo trophies only). So much of the magic we have experienced out there is hard to put into words.

Anyway… a new adventure begins, with a new place for us. I have seen sperm whales before in Baja and Norway. The water visibility in Baja was horrible, and those encounters were super intense because you did not see the whale until it was just a few feet away from you. At this point, your only instinct is to move out of the way before we were run over by the freight train moving through. Damn, that was fun!

In Norway, we could not catch up to them; the dry suits were too thick and slowed us down. Plus, the water visibility was not the greatest. So we never got close enough. But in Dominica, we will have amazing visibility and whales that are hopefully tolerant of us divers.

We will see. So much is unknown, when you are out there, which is exciting. The not-knowing is always difficult when it comes to wildlife expeditions, because you do not know if and when an animal will show up. But that is what I truly love about nature, there are never any guarantees. So when they do show up, it makes each encounter special.

That unknown is where you will find magic.

More later. It is time to board the plane and off into the unknown.

Thank you for reading and your comments, I appreciate them all!