Today was MAGIC... Pure Magic!

August 13, 2021 - (7:03AM)
This week has been a bit more challenging to find whales. But that is the way nature is, and I wouldn't want it any other way. It should not be easy to see one of the most desired whales in the world. There should be some challenge to it. Of course, you do not want it to be too challenging, because damn, it has been tough.

It is wild how quickly things change. Last week there were a lot of whale families hanging around. This week, most of the pods have moved off to deeper and wilder waters to hunt and maybe hide. We also encountered a few predators while we were out here. Pilot whales and pygmy killer whales showed up. Of course, these are the predators we got to see. We did not see, or do not know if any other predators arrived when we were not there. It is not easy being a whale in the wild, especially with small babies. Even though you are one of the biggest animals in the ocean, survival is not guaranteed.

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Gervais Beaked whale

We head out today for day five, which means we only have two days left. The encounters we have had so far have been brief. In four days we have only had one encounter that was really good. Other than that, we have been blessed with so-so interactions.

Yesterday was our first official skunking. We saw no sperm whales, not a distant whale spout, no flukes… nothing. We did see a Gervais beaked whale and a pygmy sperm whale, but we got no water time with them. Although had I reacted quicker; I may have gotten an underwater proof of life shot of the beaked whale. It passed by the boat decently close. It would have been amazing to photograph that extremely rare whale. But I was too slow. And that is how it goes, you have to be ready for those moments if you want to see amazing things.

Well, we are heading out to sea. My fingers and toes are crossed.

I am hoping for magic… real magic today.

We need it.

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8:33PM (End of day 5 Report)

TODAY was EPIC!!! WOW, WOW, WOW! Is all I can say. Damn man, after a frustrating and slow start to this week's trip, it is so good to be able to walk off the boat having the experiences we had today. We saw our first whales and got in the water around 9:30 AM. After that, it was non-stop; the whale action just kept going. Our final jump in with the whales was around 1:30-ish. We were all exhausted but happy. That feeling of pure joy vibrates through you. I am sitting here writing in my hotel room, and my head is still buzzing from it.

The whales were feeling very social, and thankfully not in an eating mood. They instead were rubbing up on each other, rolling and playing. They were in a great mood. These are the encounters you dream of. Most of the time, the encounters you get are when the whales come up from a long feeding dive. They are tired and trying to replenish their blood with more oxygen to go down for another deep dive. So they completely ignore us or want nothing to do with us and will either pass by us quickly or just drop back down into the black abyss. Those encounters are short, and the images and videos from those moments are ok.

Spy Hopping. Not a great image but I wanted to show you what it looks like.

However, when the whales are feeling social, DAMN - those encounters are fun. The whales will swim right up to you, rolling around, turning upside down, some will spy hop,- and when the whales look at you… you can feel them really look at you. I am sure in those moments, they wish they could talk to us in a voice we could understand. I think the joy that would spill out of their souls in those moments would be too much for us to handle.

I know I am getting woo-woo right now, but I am on a high, and I do wish I could speak to them. I really do. Well, today, I did have one teenager speak to me, and I completely understood her. During one encounter, I was swimming towards a group of about six whales. I had not even gotten there yet when this fiery young lady stopped swimming. She turned around to face me and started clicking me hard with her sonar. I thought for sure she was trying to explode my brain, like in the movie Scanners. Thankfully there is nothing breakable in there, so I was safe. As she was clicking me, she let out one last click with what felt like a scream, telling me to Back Off!!! I don't speak whale, but I did understand that message loud and clear.

I was hoping for magic today, and we got it. I am so happy for all our guests who joined us this week. These are the days you want for them. You don't always get them, so you appreciate them to your very core when you do.

Damn, I am happy!

Sperm Whale Expedition... Summing up Trip # 1.

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.

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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!

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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.

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Breaching sperm whale

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.

MAGIC!!! No Other Words Can Describe Today Properly.

August 5, 2021 - It is going to be difficult to describe today in words. MAGIC! That is the best way to describe it. The morning started very slow. Probably because of the pygmy killer whales that passed through the area. Sadly we could not get close to them. They are super shy and stayed far away from the boat. It was cool knowing they were around, and I snapped a few surface fin shot of them, but that was it. The day before, we had short fin pilot whales in the area. Both species are hunting for young sperm whales. So even though it is cool seeing these hard-to-find species around, it messes up our chances of finding playful sperm whales. The pilot whales were shy as well, and after a few failed attempts to get in with them, we decided to leave them alone to find sperm whales.

We spent the next few hours looking for the sperm whales. We found a few, but they were not interested in us at all and would drop down into the depths every time we tried to get close to them. Again, predators in the area made them uneasy.

A pod of Atlantic spotted dolphins entertained us for a while. They were riding our bow wave and jumping in our boat’s wake. However, they quickly got bored with us and moved on. So we kept on searching for the whales. Our Captain and guide, Kevin stopped every 30-40 minutes to drop the hydrophone in to listen and see what direction the sperm whale clicks were the loudest. They would listen, then head off in whatever direction they thought we would find the most amount of whales.

Around 1:30-ish, we found a group of four whales, and in the distance there were a few more whales all swimming in the same direction. Our guides suggested we follow them. Based on the behavior they were witnessing, they felt the whales were going to group up, possibly with more whales, to either play or sleep. So we followed them, and sure enough, more whales joined in, and then a few more. I think it ended up being around nine whales in total. The whales would swim, then slow down and start play, rolling and rubbing up on each other, play biting; they were spy hopping. They even breached a couple of times while we were in the water. It was awesome.

I snapped this image of Jean photographing the family of whales as they swam by.

We spent a couple of hours with them - we would jump in, play a bit, the whales would swim by and away, then we would get back on the boat, watch them for a while, then do it all over again. It was awesome.

It was almost time to call it quits when our Captain told us we had time for one more jump. So, of course, we all got ready. Our Captain positioned the boat near the whales, and we went in. There were around seven whales spread out; three of them went in one direction, the other four went in another direction; I followed them. I snapped a few images of the four as they swam by. They passed by me close and then kept going. I watched them swim off, then noticed that they stopped swimming and began rough playing. So I swam after them to try and get a closer look. I thought for sure they would break it off the second I got there, but they didn’t; they just kept playing. The water clouded up with bubbles and pieces of whale skin. Part of why they rough play is to help shed off their old dead skin.

They were rolling and rubbing and play biting each other. It was just MAGIC watching them play like this. I snapped image after image, stopping every once in a while to watch the show, and to get out of the way, because they kept rolling in my direction. I am not sure if they wanted to involve me in their play or not. The whales kept rolling towards me, and just a few feet away sometimes. It was WOW! I loved every second of it.

The four kept rolling and playing around us until the baby decided she had had enough and swam off. Only the three adults remained. They stayed playing for a quick minute-ish more, and then they went after the baby, leaving us alone and emotionally drained by what we just experienced. I popped my head out of the water and told my guide, “just shoot me now, nothing left to see after that.” moments later, our guest Lisa popped her head out and said, “you guys can shoot me now, I can die now.”

What a day… what an amazingly beautiful day!

Can’t wait for tomorrow. Thank you again for reading.

A Wildly FUN Day in the Water!

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Me snapping some shots of the whales. Image by Jean Dubois

August 2, 2021 - Day one in the water, and DAMN, DAMN, DAMN! What a day. When you plan a trip to a place like Dominica for one of the most coveted whale species in our ocean, you want it to be a good trip, and you want your guests to have excellent experiences. You have high expectations, and you hope for quality encounters, but the reality is that you never know what nature will gift you with, so you keep your expectations low and hope for some good wildlife karma to come your way.

Well, today exceeded anything I dreamed we were going to experience out here. WOW-WOW-WOW! I was blown away by what we all had today. I knew we were going to find whales, I just did not know how quickly we would find them, that was a big surprise to me. Not 30 minutes after we left port, we found sperm whales. We found one pod, or clan, or group, of sperm whales. Our guides did not know this group very well, and the whales were reluctant to let us hang out with them for very long. Thankfully the guides here do not harass the whales and so we did not spend much time with them.

It turns out there are about 20 different families of sperm whales out here, and some of them are friendlier than others. The next group we found tolerated us for a little while but then pushed out for quieter waters.

We had perfect weather today. Plenty of sun and glassy calm seas. Of course it made it harder to find the whales, you need a bit of wind to carry their spray un in the air so they can be easier to find.

We had a good encounter with two sleepy whales. They hung out on the surface for about ten minutes before they dove down to hunt for giant squid. That is right, giant squid… Our guide told us that they had found a giant squid tentacle on the surface, back in November, that was twenty feet long. Crazy.

We left that second group and hit the jackpot! We found another family of whales and spent the rest of our time with them. These guys were awesome. They had a wee baby with them, and it was so friendly and curious, it repeatedly kept coming to check us out. The baby was so close at times we could have touched it. We didn't, of course, but it would come in really close. During one encounter, the baby swam straight for us and almost ran over Eldad, we captured the whole thing on video. What a hell of a moment.

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During our time out there, we encountered a superpod of Fraser's dolphins. This was my first time meeting this species; they have pink bellies, which are really cool looking. I tried for some porpoising shots. Unfortunately, I did not get the image that I had in my mind's eye, but I got a keeper.

During the day, the whales scatter, I am sure hunting in different areas, searching for the best hunting spots. Towards the end of the day, they started regrouping. We finished our session with five of them, the adults, rolling and playing around with the babies and juveniles. It was such a rush to be in the water with these whales, hearing and feeling those clicks as they swam slowly by us.

Overall this was one of the best days of whale swimming I have ever experienced. Thankfully this is day one. We still have five more days to go. Well, I have another six days with our next group, but who's counting? Lol

Thank you for reading.

Travel Day... We are Off to Dominica!

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.

Baja Sperm Whale.

Train moving through.

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.

Norway Sperm Whale

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!

Mako Shark Expedition Highlights

February 21, 2021 (2:49 PM Sunday) - Travel day, flying home to Texas. I have been gone for two weeks for this trip. Lots of eating out, sharing time with guests, and I did stay pretty busy with wildlife on this trip. However, I did not film as much as I should have, nor did I write as much as I needed to - so behind on all of it, sorry guys. I am not making good on my word. I frustrate myself because I failed to keep proper records of this adventure. I have had this discussion so many times with myself. Talking about it and doing it are two very different things. Sometimes you come back from spending all day on the water and the last thing you want to do is write or record yourself, but I will get better at it. Ok, enough with what is going on in my head, on to the blog…

On our first day out, we ran into this baby humpback whale breaching over and over. It was such a happy baby, enjoying being alive.

Our mako trip went so well; I am very proud of it. We encountered makos every day we were out on the ocean. On day one, the mako only stayed for around 20 minutes, not a lengthy encounter, but enough for everyone to see it and get excited about seeing more makos. It was a small shark, about 3 feet long, super cute. On our second day, we had a mako show up about 20 minutes into chumming, a record for me. This shark stayed with us for about 45 minutes before it left. I think it was intimidated, because it was really tiny.

After that, we had two blue sharks show up about 3 hours later. Now that is a typical wait for oceanic sharks. We swam with them for about an hour, but finally had to call it a day. Conditions started getting worse, so we were forced to leave. Blue sharks are amazing sharks, they are very bold and will come in and stay for extended periods of time. It is a species shark divers dream of encountering. Very photogenic and not shy at all.

On our final day, we began chumming, and about ten minutes into the chum, we noticed a small brown-looking animal swimming towards us. We thought it was a sea lion at first, but it was blowing water out of a spout, so we thought it was a pilot whale. But it was brown; pilot whales are black. Then Fer had a moment when she realized it was a baby sperm whale. We automatically pulled up the chum and went after the whales, hoping for a shot at seeing them underwater. 

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I managed to snap one image that I am happy with. The rest are terrible due to the bad vis. I still feel so lucky to have spent some time with them. It truly was a dream come true for me.

This was a huge pod of whales, at least 20-30 members strong. They were scattered all over the ocean, hunting, I believe? We were all on fire. For whale encounters, sperm whales are one of the most coveted whales to hopefully encounter.

Of course with that first jump, reality hit hard - the visibility was horrible. We found out that unless we were within 10 feet of the animal, we could not see it. So it made the encounters a bit more intense. Everyone was super gung ho about it and did not mind, but it was always a shock to see this massive animal just appear out the green soup. Sometimes it seemed like the sperm whales were shocked as well. On one encounter one of the whales took a crap and then dove straight down. Our group was left floating next to the muddy water, huge smile on our faces. The pod was mostly females, with a few babies. The babies would stay at the surface while the adults would drop down to the depths, my guess they were hunting. I do not think we encountered any bulls, but there could have possibly been juvenile males there. 

The best encounter of the day was when our buddy Roberta swam towards a group of about three sperm whales. She could not see them until they were very close, and when she looked up they were right in front of her. One of the whales had its mouth open, not sure if it did that to show her it’s very lethal pair of teeth or if it already was swimming that way. She filmed the encounter and this big beautiful whale close up. I pulled a frame grab from the clip. Such an impressive predator.

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Towards the end of the day while we were following the whales, we saw a mako swimming close to the surface. Officially making it three days in a row that we saw makos. This was such an amazing trip, filled with beautiful wildlife and surprises. It was everything you want from an open ocean adventure off the coast of Baja. Plenty of shark action and whale encounters as a bonus.

Baja always delivers. 

A happy happy thank you to all our friends who joined us for this adventure. Big hug until the next one my friends!

Norway Adventure Photo Gallery

So I finally got around to editing the majority of the images from our Norway trip and cut together an album I am happy with. I do admit, I really miss the crazy cold conditions we had while visiting Norway. I miss the crunching of the snow, the beautiful white powder everywhere, I miss photographing wildlife while the snow fell, and especially the tension that was building every time we all walked together with our group in the snow. Someone was always looking over their shoulder, for fear that a snowball fight might ensue. Lol, but I do miss the fun we had with our amazing group out there. Anyway, here is the album I cut together from the trip, I hope you enjoy.