The fourth week of our 2026 Silver Bank humpback whale season ran from the 8th of February until the 14th of February, that final day also being known as… Valentine’s Day!
We sometimes have special interactions on Valentine’s Day – we aren’t sure why, but it seems we find the coolest whales on these most romantic of days (but to be fair to the calendar – and the whales – we find the coolest whales on many other days, too). This year, as it so happens, V-day fell on a Friday, the day we travel back to shore in the Dominican Republic so we don’t do any whale swimming that day as we set off for port at around 7am.
But the whales, kind as ever, seem to have decided that this whole week was ‘Valentine’s Week’, and it was nothing short of incredible. Every day was filled with something new and exciting and even though you’re supposed to save the best for last- we’ll tell you about our reunion with one of our favorite whales ever, TW!!!!!
For those that may not know her, “TW” is a very famous whale here on the Silver Bank with Conscious Breath Adventures. She has been returning for more than ten years now, appearing both as a single looking for a mate, as well as a mother with calf. We’ve seen and swum with her in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2023 and now 2025 and sighted her in 2017, too (but did not swim with her that year). This year,
she’s got a calf with her, a “little” male who is just as bouncy and charismatic as his mother. We encountered this beautiful pair in the water on three separate occasions! TW is identifiable, and has earned her name, because of a mark on her left pectoral fin that looks like a tattoo of the initials “TW”. Funnily enough, for our first few interactions we only got a look at her right pectoral fin so we didn’t know it was her for sure but we were starting to think she was acting familiar. Then on day two, from our first hop into the water, she was ready to show off her left pec for all of us to see – and identify.
Not only was it delightful to be in the water with what now feels like an old friend, but the interactions themselves were beautiful. Her calf was constantly curious and engaging but the highlights were always when the pair would surface together. Mum always stays down longer than baby, maybe 3-4 breath cycles of the calf, so we were seeing her come to the surface every 14-16 minutes. When she did, baby would often ride her nose to the surface, belly up for our enjoyment, showing off a giant heart shaped mark across his ventral pleats – and also enabling us to easily identify that he was a he.
They would both spend several wonderful minutes at the surface, moving ever so slowly, almost drifting, easy for us to spectate. The calf would circle around TW’s rostrum, poke out from under her pectorals, nudge up against her dorsal fin, and come over to check us out. He was slightly more shy while mum was resting below, but as soon as they were at the surface together he would find his confidence and get more excited.
But the true magic came when our favorite baby whale found himself with too much energy and nothing to do with it but… BREACH!
Every so often the calf would go on a bit of a breaching jag, signaled when he would just take off at high speed. On one occasion we followed for nearly two hours as he breached more than 150 times (we eventually lost track and stopped counting). This was one of the most acrobatic shows we’ve ever seen! My goodness, this little whale was an absolute beauty and mum gave us a several huge breaches of her own for good measure. But it was the calf that really stole the show. Over and over again this calf was jumping, leaping and playing for us, sometimes much closer than we were expecting!
By the time he was done, our long day was about over and we headed back to the M/V Sea Hunter for the sundown celebration, dinner and our evening presentation. But no problem because the next morning we went out to again find our two main characters almost where we left them. The action was much the same, with intervals of incredibly peaceful and calm interactions interspersed with bouts of enthusiastic breaching on a ratio of about one from TW for every 50-60 from the calf.
We even found TW and calf again on our last day, Thursday, but also gave attention to a another mum and calf, with an escort, who we encountered out on the open Silver Bank while hunting for a singer. From what we could hear on the hydrophone it sounded like we got close to a singer but we got distracted by this trio, with a very active calf. She could not stay still at all, swimming around under mum, up to us, even over to the escort who was completely calm and unaffected by this calf bothering him relentlessly. That’s not something that happens often and it was a really cool interaction to watch, especially as the two adults were hanging out at a shallow depth, making it easy for us to get a nice good look.
And then, juggling our chronology of highlights, day one was beautiful too. We found a pair of adults but they were not resting. They were very boat-curious and when we joined them in the water, they were curious about us, too. They would sweep in super close to us, giving us a good look at their ventral plates when they looked at us with both eyes at the same time we admired them. Then they would fade away into the blue and we would think they had gone… only to reappear moments later to give us another incredible pass. That this exciting interaction at the start of the week is the last highlight we talk about in our Cruise Report is evidence of just how abundant this week was. Thank you to TW and all her fellow whales for all the good times on Valentine’s Week. As usual, we can’t wait to see what’s next.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!