Before getting into uw shots of our fourth day with the Sperm whales off Dominica I wanted to show and comment on a couple of other things. First, here's some shots of our boat from the week, she's 30 ft long with a 12 ft beam. A very comfortable boat for our group of six, two guides, a deck hand, and captain.
Here's a look at the boat's stern. The diving platform is sturdy and just large enough to hold two snorkelers sitting on each side of the ladder ready to quietly, with a minimum of a splash, slip into the water when given the word by the captain. The captain maneuvers the boat just the right distance in front of the Sperm whale and, if practical, positioned so the sun is at our backs, illuminating the dark whale for good natural light photography since, obviously, there is no way to use artificial light.
The boat has good seating and good canopy and roof to keep us from basting in the sunlight.
Izzy, our licensed whale guide, with two marine biology degrees, is getting ready to deploy the hydrophone for locating sperm whales by the clicks they emit to echo locate squid while down deep hunting at depths of 300-800 meters, basically a quarter to a half mile down. The hydrophone is omni-directional but it has been rendered directional by inserting it into a neoprene covered metal salad bowl you can see at the right end of the square shaped pole used to stick the hydrophone down in the water. Izzy and Kevin then work together to rotate and listen around all points of the compass to locate the direction to where the whales are hunting.
Here's a eye view of the hydrophone when deployed, not that it would be deployed when a whale is close enough to see it...
Izzy, on the left, has the hydrophone down and rotates it between, for instance, S, SW, W, etc. as Kevin tells him to shift it. Kevin has on ear phones to better hear the whale clicks. The way the day goes is, if you are looking at whales, you aren't listening for whales, if your listening for whales, you aren't seeing whales. Always keeping in mind that a whale is down 40 - 50 minutes each time it dives to feed.
Once a likely whale is spotted the scramble is on for the four persons getting deployed in front of the whale to get on their fins and masks, clamber quickly onto the back platform, hanging on since the boat is still going forward at various speeds, holding your legs and fins up out of the water while sitting on the platform, then getting your camera passed to you, then quietly quickly slipping into the water without a splash when the captain gives the word and while the boat, though the engine is disengaged, is still very much gliding forward.
Here's a shot I took of me keeping my legs and fins up out of the water while sitting on the boat's dive platform as the captain gets the boat in position for us to slip quietly quickly into the water.
Russ and Barbs on my left watching the whale (you can see it with its forward directed spout) as we pull in front of it to deploy.
Here's a shot of Chris, our guide from Indigo Safaris
www.indigosafaris.com, sitting on my right, ready to deploy as we pass another whale.
A forward projected spout (the sperm whale goes where it blows) as we pass a whale getting into position to drop four snorkelers in the water with her.
Whale brought close with my zoom lens. At this point it is "go, go, go" to the snorkelers sitting on the boat's dive platform, they slip in fast and quiet then position themselves in front of where she's headed.
Snorkelers at the end of an encounter. It's the end because when a whale arches up like this she's about to go fluke up which means she's doing a deep dive and won't be back up for 40 to 50 minutes and may surface a mile or so away in any direction.
Bye bye, a deep dive for hunting squid for 40 - 50 minutes begins. When, instead of diving, a whale just swims past the snorkelers a mad scramble begins to get the snorkelers back on board and out of the way of the next team of four so that we can get another encounter before we lose the whale to a deep hunting dive.
Here she comes, the four of us, Barbs, Russ, Chris, and I are spread out ahead of her, lying flat, still as possible, to be as innocuous as possible in the hope she will be curious and not speed on past us or worse, turn aside. When a whale turns aside we do not drop another team with her, we let her relax and go about her business.
Closer! The captain has dropped us so that we've got the sun at our backs, illuminating the whale.
Closer!
Close!
My fin in view as she turns behind me, so I turn to swim around a fellow snorkeler and start sprinting as hard as I can to try to prolong the encounter.
There she goes!
Happy Hunting!
New encouunter. Sperm whales have large teeth in their lower jaw that fit into sockets in their upper jaw.
Chris with sperm whale tooth kept on the boat to show snorkelers.
As the whale passed Russ, he kicked out to get video from close behind. I like having him in the shot to help give some sense of scale. She is huge, though significantly smaller than an adult male sperm whale.
Another encounter, probably mom with large calf. Lots more photos at attached link, above.
Our forth day with the sperm whales was glorious, unforgettable!
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