I am back in Dominica for another week of sperm whale diving. I really like this place. I mean, what is not to like… a beautiful island with resident populations of sperm whales.

The place is HEAVEN.

Today was day one of our trip, and I am super happy to report that we had fun encounters with some friendly whales. The whales were hunting today, so we did not spend much time with them. When the whales are hunting, they go down and spend between 45 minutes to an hour at depth hunting squids. When they finally do come up, it is short.

They come up for around ten minutes, replenish their oxygen supply, and possibly help feed the youngsters in the family pod. Young sperm whales cannot go as deep as the adults, so they stay shallow, listening for sonar clicks from the adults below, to follow them around.

Sperm whales live in pods, except the males; they are solitary, or form bachelor groups. The sperm whales in a pod all help to raise the young. Each female will feed milk to any baby in their pod that is too young to hunt for themselves. It is wonderful.

The morning was fantastic. The seas were calm, and the sun was out. It was a great start. But that quickly ended when a tropical depression moved through the area in the late afternoon.. and just like that, our beautiful day ended.

Thankfully the storm passed towards the end of the day. We had a good morning with plenty of whale action in good light and pretty water. It was an excellent start to the week. We returned to port in the middle of the storm, and we all rushed to our rooms to dry up and download our images and video from today.

Day one was a success… looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings.

Until then, thanks for reading.