Day Six, our final day of the trip, and it was the BEST day of the trip too.
We left at 9am this morning and motored out to the South side of the island to listen for sperm whales. We knew the Utensils pod went south when the pilot whales arrived three days ago, but we were hoping they would come back.
The Utensils pod is one of the friendliest pods off Dominica, and is great for interactions. We dropped the hydrophone and listened, but zero clicks. No sperm whales were around. So we decided to head North and see if the sperm whales were on the other side of the island.
While in route, we found out why the sperm whales were gone from the South side. The pilot whales had returned. The pod we encountered on day three was back. When we found them three days ago, they were headed South and out into the Atlantic. The pilots returned and were now headed North.
At this point we knew any search for sperm whales would be difficult, so we decided to embrace what nature has presented to us and just hang out with the pilot whales.
I am so glad we did.
We positioned the boat 100 yards in front of the whales and killed the motor. The pilot whales did something we did not expect, they swam straight up to the boat, stopped swimming and all of them began spy hoping. We were all putting on swim gear, but this sort of stopped us in our tracks. What were they doing?
A quick video of the pilot whales behavior. I was torn between capturing topside and getting in the water, so its a short video.
A group of about thirty whales were all on the surface, not swimming, just hovering there by our boat, seemly taking turns sticking their faces out of the water, looking at us. It was insane!!!
I was torn between filming the spectacle and grabbing my kit and jumping in the water. Bill, our captain said he has never seen this behavior before. Not in the numbers that we were seeing today.
I captured a few stills, and tried to record a little bit of video, but my need to get in the water won me over, and I put the topside camera down and went to grab my swim gear.
I am trying really hard to find the words to describe what we all experienced today, it really is hard to find the words. To quote Jodie Foster from the movie Contact… “they should of sent a poet, no words.” I know it sounds cheesy, but the day was above and beyond anything I normally have experienced with whales.
The whales would hang out, then swim off. We would get back on the boat, get ahead of them and jump in again. The whales would swim back to the boat and interact with us again, and we did this over and over again for five hours straight.
The whale would swim up to us, roll, and play, and hang around us and then swim off again. Sometimes dropping down into the depths, other times just swim off into the distance. It was true magic.
After about three hours we decided to give them a break, eat lunch and just watch them from the boat. I was about to eat my wrap when the pilot whales swam back to the boat to find out what happened to us. It seemed they wanted to know where we went. They again were hovering right by the boat, some of them were spy hopping, waiting to see if we were going to jump back in.
My heart and mind were exploding.
So we scrapped the lunch idea and back into the water we went. We continued swimming with them. It was non-stop… the whales kept coming up to us. One of the juveniles took a big interest in our cameras and kept coming up close to get a good look at the dome ports. Maybe it was looking at it’s reflection, I don’t know?
This went on for the next two hours.
On our final jump of the day, we jumped in and the whales dove down to avoid us. We took that as a sign that they were done and it was time to call it a day.
The emotions on the boat were at an all time high. All of us were on fire… this was the stuff that dreams are made of. I have had some amazing moments in the water, but this day ranks up there with the very best of them.
Sandy, one of our friends on the trip said it best, “Days like today are why I would want to live forever.”
Wanted to say a special thanks to the beautiful people of Dominica, and a HUGE thank you to our friends who joined us out there, it was an amazing week. Luv you guys.
Until the next one and thank you guys for reading.
