Chasing whales!

We didn’t get to go on the whale watching tour we’d booked, so we decided to conduct our own on the way to Turks and Caicos. We aren’t as fast as the whale watching boats, so we left a bit earlier than them and then watched where they went and monitored their VHF radio channel. It was a pretty successful strategy because they cluster together in little packs.

We did see whales: just blows and surfacing but it was still exciting because we were part of the whale watching pack. We even contributed when we saw signs of whales, yelling and pointing along with the "tourists". The whales were making their way out of the shallow Samana Bay: because it’s shallow they stay near the surface and, unlike our other sightings, don’t blow, fluke and dive, forever gone, but meander (quite speedily) to the exit of the bay. This behaviour gave us the chance to “follow” them. Some of the pack were tiny speed boats and these always arrived at a sighting first with the larger boats trailing. While we didn’t see a whole lotta a whale, the experience was exhilarating.

Finally and regretfully we had to make our way out of the bay and start the two day passage to Turks and Caicos. And about four hours later we saw a couple of whales on their passage from Silver Bank to Samana Bay. This was even more fantastic than the morning encounter because the whales were engaged in slapping their huge fins on the sea and creating waves – it looks like they have huge fun, but I’m not sure if they’re really playing...

As before, click on the pic to see the little tiny images of whales we managed to get...