August 8, 2021 - Sunday, my day off. Wow, what a week it has been. It is hard to put into words what we experienced out here. However, I feel lucky and blessed to have been out here, especially with the covid craziness. It was an adventure just trying to get to this Island. Sadly our buddy Tom was supposed to be here, but due to covid restrictions, he wasn't able to make it. My heart broke, not just because I wanted to see and share another adventure with my dear friend, but also because he could not be out here with us to experience the magic of this place. Miss and luv you my friend.

Dominica truly is a special place. The Island is magical and rugged, and wild. It is so green, thick with vegetation. The whole Island is mountains, and the villages are built on mountainsides. It has 365 rivers, and waterfalls, and hot springs, coming from active volcanoes. The Island looks like it belongs in a Jurassic Park movie, just spectacular.

The bonus is it also has a population of sperm whales that live here year-round, which is why we are here. There are no words to describe the magic we experienced this week. Everything you hope to see when diving with animals like this we did. We experienced every behavior, except courting mating behavior, because that happens in winter, not summer. Of course, no birthing either.

This week the behaviors we witnessed were; social behaviors (playing, rubbing, play biting, or gumming each other), sleeping whales, babies drinking milk, babies trying to play with us, adults trying to play with us (zero social distancing when they were doing that), breaching, spy hopping, it was fire... WOW, WOW, WOW!

We also got to see pilot whales and pygmy killer whales, although they did not let us near them. We tried, but they wanted nothing to do with us. We had a massive pod of Fraser's dolphins come through, as well as Atlantic spotted dolphins. No water time, but I did manage a few jumping shots of them. I still need better images of the Fraser's jumping, but we saw them almost every day, so I'm hoping for another chance.

We all captured so much video and stills of the whales; it is hard to figure out what to share on social media and this blog. The most challenging images to capture during this trip were breaching sperm whale shots because they do not breach very often, so you have to be ready when they do. However, with a lot of effort and the help our guides, I managed a couple of photos of it. Unfortunately, it is still not the one I am after, but I have another week to try.

Overall it was a fantastic trip with incredible encounters and thrilled sunburnt people. A huge thanks go out to our friends who joined us this week. Thank you for joining us out there… we luv you guys and looking forward to another adventure with you guys.

Thank you guys for reading, thanks you for comments and thank you for following along on this crazy journey of ours, I truly appreciate it my friends.