Another Silver Bank Trip Report from Captain Gene of Conscious Breath Adventures, aboard the Sea Hunter!
We know we say this every week, but how have we already finished week six?! That means we are more than halfway through the season, which feels crazy to say. But then again, it’s a very relatable feeling when recalling the phrase “time flies when you’re having fun with whales” (or something like that). Is that what we have been doing? Absolutely! ()
This week we had a very international boatloadof guests from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Hungary and Belarus. What a lot! And Capt Gene’s family was even aboard too. It seemed an assembly of the United Nations of Cetaceans was in session. Welcome to one and all!
This week was truly the week of the humpback whale calves, with the little ’uns stealing the show
every single day. From breaching, to showing off underwater, to spy hopping and floppy pec slaps, we’ve really seen everything a calf could have to offer – but the most fantastic experience of the week was discovered on Wednesday morning by Capt Gene. In lovely weather our two whaleboats will often separate to cover more ground, searching near and far, from the coral reef to the open expanses of the Silver Bank. In this case, Cat took her group on the hunt for a singer out on the Bank while Gene scoured the coral heads for something – 
and it didn’t take him long at all.
He quickly found a mum and calf both resting at the surface for what would turn out to be the whole morning. This is always exciting to see, with the beautiful visibility in the corals, the light playing with the whales in the shallow water and simply the relaxed nature of the interaction itself. But what really made the encounter memorable was a behaviour that everyone was lucky enough to see from the calf when it opened it’s mouth as wide as it could, and washed out it’s ventral 
pleats. On the occasions we get to see this, we often assume it is related to flushing out their baleen plates after nursing but, given the situation and how sleepy both mum and baby were, we think we might have been lucky enough to witness a yawn!
After all our swimmers logged some quality whale time they both wandered off into the corals. Then a few minutes later, both gave us two incredible simultaneous breaches, as if saying goodbye. What a send-off!
After that we took ourselves into lunch, only to find in the afternoon two more mum and calf pairings for each group to check out. This was the theme of the week, with almost every morning and afternoon finding us mum and calves, sometimes with escorts just to mix it up a little bit. It was a truly magical and lucky week.
Usually it’s the in-water swims we find ourselves talking about the most in these Cruise Reports. But we had a whale watching treat this week that may be one of our best sightings of the season: spotted dolphins and humpback whales swimming together! We saw it
TWICE this week, after having only seen dolphins twice for the whole season, and for less than a minute. It was very very hard to capture with a camera, the dolphin are so zippy, but it really seemed like they were interacting, with the dolphins swimming back and forth between their giant cousins and our boat to ride the bow. Both times the interaction lasted for around 10-15 minutes so we got to really appreciate these two species connecting (three species, if you include us humans). We really don’t know how a dolphin encounter could improve – unless, we suppose, we could get in! But these kept moving along.
Overall, we loved our experiences out on the Silver Bank, as we always do, and are so happy to see so many calves this year. Not only because it’s an amazing experience for our guests to have, but because it bodes well for the futures of our favorite animals that we are seeing so many young from this generation being born and raised, ready to join a growing humpback whale population. We wish all the new mothers safe journeys back up the their respective homes in the North – but hopefully not before we get to see them again next week!
Until then, a post-script of sorts.
Remember the whale named Clamp?Clamp is the momma whale that repeatedly did the endearing tail waggle for us on Week 5. She’s a bit famous now! A short video of her doing her thing that we posted on Instagram has gone a bit viral and been viewed around eight million times and counting! What’s all he fuss about? See for yourself by clicking the image at right or by clicking here.
Of course we think all the humpbacks are stars and we look forward to giving them all their fifteen minutes of fame as soon as we can. Keep reading in the coming weeks ahead to meet our next cetacean celebrity!
Until then we wish you whale!
Capt Gene, Catsharks and the Conscious Breath Adventures crew