By Mary L. Peachin
Sunday, November 21, 2003
The etiquette is clear when you have a date with a whale: Ask the parent for permission to visit. Keep a respectful distance. Go easy as you get to know the creature. Don try to make a splash.
And don do anything that would get you slapped.
It didn seem too much to ask in order to swim with migrating humpbacks, among the worlds largest animals. Our date was in the warm, clear waters of the Caribbean Sea in the Silver Bank Passage, an area 85 miles north of the Dominican Republic and a similar distance southeast of Grand Turk. As many as 5,000 Atlantic humpback whales pass through the 20-mile bank of relatively shallow water.
For the whales, the area offers a three-month happy hour. Everywhere whales are breaching, finning or lob-tailing as males pursue females in estrus. Bulls, their testosterone off the scale, sing musical symphonies to attract a mate. The whales are so consumed with desire that they stop feeding. Instead they sing birdlike songs mingled with mournful groans and moans combined with chirps and warbles. All in the name of courtship.
For humans it offers the rare experience of observing and swimming with mammals that can weigh 40 tons and grow 40 feet long.
One morning we had a dozen whale encounters plus a visit with a school of spotted dolphins, many with 2-foot-long newborns. Then we found a mother humpback and calf being followed by a young male hoping to court her. Slipping into the water, we watched as they circled us, rising to the surface. Females nurse by releasing milk into water, so the baby was never far away. It was one of our best encounters.
After awhile the mother turned radically twice, a signal that she wasn interested in us. With all his watchers back onboard, our captain steered away.
We began our whale encounter after cruising overnight from the Dominican Republic. We were a group of about a dozen from North America and Europe aboard the 120-foot M/V Wind Dancer, a functional, not fancy, scuba live-aboard with 10 staterooms. Visiting the migration area at the same time were two other similar-size boats, Bottom Time, and Turks and Caicos Aggressor II.
But before we could have our first date, whale expert Tom Conlin gave us an introductory briefing. “Our first encounter will probably be a flyby so all of you can get your first whale fix,” he said. “It will be a blow-and-go, a whale surfacing and moving on.”
If we were downwind, Mr. Conlin advised, we shouldn breathe the mist from the blow. Its smelly and oily, and not good for cameras, he said.
Most important, we learned whale etiquette. Many of the youngsters are like kids in the terrible 2s. The calves may be curious about us, but before we could swim near them we needed their mothers permission. If a whale changed direction twice, we were to leave them alone.
Mr. Conlin has been studying whales on the Silver Bank for more than a decade. In 1983, he wrote the guidelines for the Dominican Republic for observing the whales and received the governments first permit (of todays total of four) to enter the migration area. Three years later, the area was established as a whale sanctuary from December until mid-April. Mr. Conlin is passionate about the whales, calling them his “darlings.”
Every morning, the routine was the same. Wed board one of two smaller 25-foot fiberglass tenders at 8:30 to get closer to the whales. Wed have lunch on the ship and return each afternoon for three hours more of watching. While most of the guests were divers, the boat does not require C-cards. It helps to be comfortable in the open sea, a good swimmer and reasonably fit. Six and a half-hours of continual (on a good day) sliding out of the boat tenders, swimming quietly but quickly 100 yards, then climbing up the ladder after whale encounters can be exhausting.
Before our first experience we had to learn the “seal” entry. Lying on our bellies leaning over the gunwale with mask and fins on and cameras in hand, we eased quietly into the water trying not to make a splash. We were told to swim with our hips to the side barely moving our fins. Dive fins are a necessity in order to cope with the current and the need to dodge a dangerous tail slap if one happens. Several of us missed being hit with a tail by only a few yards.
To track the whales, Mr. Conlin and Wind Dancer Capt. Brett Sussman used stopwatches to time the calves underwater. They surface every four to five minutes to breathe. We would begin most encounters with the help of a scout, a snorkeler who could climb into the boat without the ladder. He or she was sent out to spot a whale that had just tailed down into the water. A scout who found a whale would raise an arm straight in the air, and all of us would swim toward the signal.
After a few encounters, we sensed how to give the whales adequate room and not make them feel corralled. Each tender also had a dive master/photographer who directed us in the water when not passing us bottled water, fresh fruit, sandwiches, or candy and cookies.
We assumed responsibility for scanning the area looking for obliging, slow-moving whales, ones that would provide the best close encounters. When we would sight a mother with calf, occasionally accompanied by a courting male, we quietly entered the water, hoping the whales would become curious and swim toward us.
Even when “whale waiting” seemed slow, there was exciting surface activity to watch. Nearby and in the distance, whales breached or a rowdy group, their dorsal fins bloodied from fighting to become the alpha male, might pass near the tender chasing a female and calf away from us.
Several times Mr. Conlin dropped hydrophones into the water so we could hear the range of the whales songs.
One day, we spent nearly three hours among the whales. The first encounter was the most exciting, as the calf played and nuzzled its mother at a depth of about 30 feet. After 15 minutes, when Mr. Sussman noticed the baby had surfaced three times for air, it was clear we had worn out our welcome. The calf breached, missing us by a few feet. Then, its mother tail-breached, slapping the water to tell us “enough.”
Our dive master shouted for us to get out of the water and into the boat.
A few hundred yards away, we found another female and calf. She would nuzzle her mother, then frolic before surfacing to flap her pectoral fins, then rejoin her mother. Every third or fourth time, the mother would surface with the calf and move off.
Like any diving experience, some days were more successful than others. On our last day, we had about a half-dozen quick fly-bys in the morning and only a few in the afternoon. It had a good week of encounters, calm waters, but cloudy skies and poor visibility.
As Mr. Conlin said, “Its not SeaWorld or Shamu.” But I wasn disappointed. We had joined a group of maybe 20,000 in the world who have ever been in the water with humpback whales.
WHEN YOU GO
WHALE EXCURSIONS
The trips are offered from mid-February through mid-April and may sell out in advance.
Whale expert Tom Conlin of Aquatic Adventures charters Peter Hughes Wind Dancer. Mr. Conlins company can be reached at 1-954-382-0024; www.aquaticadventures.com. You can also book him through Marc Bernardis Aquatic Encounters (1-800-757-1365, pin 1815; www.aquaticencounters.com) or directly with Peter Hughes (1-800-932-6237; www.peterhughes.com. Wind Dancer excursions are $2,295 plus a $150 sanctuary fee.
Wind Dancers rooms are small, but the crew is helpful and enthusiastic. Food is just serviceable; guests come for the whales, not luxuries. A highlight were Mr. Conlins numerous whale lectures and his photographs.
Other ships visiting the area include the 120-foot Turks & Caicos Aggressor II. The ship uses inflatable rafts to search for whales. The cost of $2,295 includes the sanctuary fee. Contact: Aggressor Fleet, 1-800-348-2628; www.aggressor.com/tcahome .html.
Bottom Time, the third boat licensed in the sanctuary, also uses inflatable rafts. The cost of $2,095 doesn include alcohol, airport transfers, park fee, tourist card or country exit fee. It also uses inflatable rafts. Contact: 1-800-234-8464; www.bottomtimeadventures.com.
Mary L. Peachin, a freelance writer in Arizona, is the author of “The Complete Idiots Guide to Sharks.”