Getting Back in the Groove
(and we aren’t just talking about the ventral pleats) 


Whale Hello Again!

It is feeling strange, after months and months of build up and anticipation, to already be writing to you about what it was like to spend another week with the humpback whales on the Silver Bank. We put, days, weeks and years into planning these trips and then once they are upon us, the time flies past quicker than you could imagine. Just look at the date! (As always: click images for a larger view)

The week of January 25 – February 1 was full of unforgettable moments from the very first swim! As we were preparing our snorkel gear and ourselves to board our trusty skiffs for the first practice swim, we noticed a big momma humpback with her little calf in tow, eager to meet his first human beings. Despite all the excitement of having swimmable whales standing by, we will always focus on safety and the value of our in-water briefings. In this case that meant we had to engage in a little bit of teamwork where one boat babysat the whales and kept an eye on our favorite mammalian duo, while the second boat learned and practiced our quiet water entry and silent swimming techniques. Once finished, we switched out and the first boat completed their briefing while the second boat snuck into the water with the waiting whales!

Mum appreciated us being safe in the water and rewarded us by trusting her baby to offer us some lovely close swims. She even stuck around long enough for our other boat to finish their practice and take a few turns, too.

With a very youthful start to the week, we were surprised to find ourselves surrounded by adults for the rest of the week. On two separate days, we found two adults resting together, in both cases a female with her escort. Both pairs were completely relaxed and gifted us plenty of swimming – enough that our guests decided they were full of whales but hungry for lunch.

The first pair were a testament to the patience that goes into whale swimming. For nearly an hour and a half we tracked them at a distance, eyeing them carefully only to have them slip below the surface of the water to reappear behind us 20 minutes later (we were sure we heard them laughing). Whether we finally gained their trust, or they simply decided to rest, it’s hard to say, but when they did let us in to see them, it was a beautiful interaction. The escort was especially curious, turning his tummy towards us to show off his ventral pleats as he looked at the swimmers with both eyes. Lovely!

The second resting pair we happened across on our last day, and being in the water with them was like deja vu. They were exhibiting similar patterns of behavior, and similar reluctance to leave us. When they surfaced, it would barely be 50m away that they moved. This gave us the perfect opportunity to share whales, with one of our guides waiting in the water with the whales as each boat swapped out swimmers.

And as a bonus, after just a couple weeks on site, the local fish have taken up shelter under Sea Hunter. There are Bermuda chub, yellowtail snapper, ballyhoo, black jack and even the occasional Caribbean reef shark. This made it easy to steal some time during lunch to slip into the water and make the most of the good visibility – and tame fish! It was a nice little bonus to cap off the week and now we can’t wait to see what’s in store for us for the rest of the season.

We hope you will keep following the action here, and thanks for reading. See you next time!