In Search of the Humpback Whale (2)

"We're going to need a bigger boat." (Jaws)

I decided to opt for a larger boat on my second whale watching trip. The Victoria II is a fifty foot boat owned by Kim Beddall, a Canadian born marine mammal specialist. I figured the upper deck on her boat had to be a better vantage point for spotting the whales than over the shoulder of someone else on the small boat I first went out in.

The boat can carry a lot of people and this day there were about 60 other whale seekers on board. Long story short....everyone wanted to be on the upper deck. When we got near the whale sanctuary and the boat idled and the upper portion of the boat swung violently from side to side, half of the passengers up there fled below to, um, dispose of their lunch. I was thisclose to joining them, when a male whale... literally out of the blue... leaped up, breaching almost completely out of the water! Wow! (times ten) 80, 000 + pounds just lunged straight up out of the sea. I couldn't believe my eyes. No one is quite sure why the whales breach, throwing their entire bodies straight up out of the water. It's not a form of "flirting" most agree and some scientists speculate that it may be just a way to clean their bodies. My theory is they do it because it's just plain F-U-N!
I was able to get only a few photos. (The ones of the breaching male above are from a friend.) I'm not that quick on the draw and apparently, I not only needed a bigger boat, but a bigger camera.

It's a topsy turvy whale world out there. This is the guy that just breached and crashed back into the water... upside down. See his large pectoral fins pointing skyward?

Today I saw a mother and calf and a ginormous male breaching, so I am content. All the regulations and short amount of time a boat can stay near the whales was a little detrimental to us whale watchers, but the safety of the whales and their protection is what it's all about. They help to insure that future whale watching enthusiasts will enjoy the experience for years to come...just as I did today.

But what about the noise from the cruise ships? All these rules for smaller boats, but cruise ships are allowed to get pretty close to the sanctuary. Look at the comparison of the tiny boat on the left with the big ship in the picture below...Did the three enormous ships in the bay have an effect on the activity of the whales that day?

The locals say yes. Nicole Koehler agrees. In a lecture presented to the University Alaska Fairbanks: (Which you can read in it's entirety at http://www.seaweed.org/ )

"Potential problems include the effects of pollutants, incidental take by
fishing gear, collisions with ships and disturbance from underwater sound (Richardson et al. 1995). Humpback whales rely on vocalizations (songs) and other sound generation (e.g., flipper and fluke slapping) for communication with each other...(Sharpe 2001) and apparently sensing their environment through echo-ranging (Clark and Ellison 2002). Man-made underwater sound, such as vessel noise, can affect whales in three ways: blocking basic communication and environmental cues, affecting behavior by interrupting activities and/or displacing whales, and temporarily or permanently reducing hearing sensitivity (Richardson et al. 1995). Thus, the potential impact of vessel sound is a concern...(In Baja California, gray whales abandoned a calving lagoon for several years and returned after vessel traffic had diminished (Bryant 1984)."
Cruise ship directors will tell you the ships have little effect on the marine environment. It may come as a surprise from my previous posts, ahem, but... I'm not a big fan of cruise ships. Just think of the pollutants alone that are dumped into the water just from the bath water of thousands of antibacterial, shower gelled, perfumed scented, soaped up people...and then there's the dish water....let alone how their constantly running motors disturb the marine life. Nope I don't like them. But that's just my opinion.

I did see whales and am not disappointed, but I have to admit not many were participating in the frolicking pheromone induced play I had anticipated and read about. But then there's never a guarantee when you're dealing with wildlife. If you are in the area and have a few days to spend, postpone a trip you may have planned if you see the cruise ships in the bay. I think you'll have a better chance of seeing the big show if you wait a day. Those ships don't hang around in one place for long. (If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium.)

Check out these sites below for more info on the Humpback whale.
Whale sounds and songs recorded at Glacier Bay, Alaska. You can also hear the underwater sound of a cruise ship here! www.nps.gov/glba/naturescience/soundclips.htm

For the smaller traveler www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/whales/species/Humpbackwhale.shtml

And this one from Animal Planet. www.animal.discovery.com/features/free-wallpaper/humpback-whale-wallpaper.html

In Search of the Humpback Whale

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

I know I'm only here for work, to scout out if this is a good whale watching spot for the company, but I have always wanted to see whales, any kind of whale, up close. I was up at dawn to a beautiful sunrise, it looked like the beginning of a promising morning....

I made arrangements the previous day for a motoconcho to take me from my cliff side lodge to a small dock in the village of Los Cacaos. Motoconchos, or motorbikes, are a popular mode of transportation here. Other than the privately owned vans, called gua guas, that drive the bumpy dirt road picking up people standing along the way, there is no other public transportation. Roberto, my chauffeur, was right on time.

Look closely at the horizon in the picture above... That cruise ship looks bigger than the hills on the other side of the bay! An ominous sight.

Once at the small dock, I met a boat captain, Milagrito, a large, intimidating, intense looking man, and made a deal to go out with him on his boat. (Turns out he's a kind, most considerate, gentle giant too.)

I was told

there would

only be

three other

people going

out in his

small boat,

but as

more hopeful

whale watchers

arrived, soon

the 14 capacity

boat was at

full capacity.

Look at the

picture of

Milagrito

again...

would you complain? We all paid for our government required tickets for entry into the whale sanctuary area, were given life jackets that were mainly for show since they had no functioning closure, and we were off..

Wow, I could hardly wait. The open water, wind in my hair, camera at the ready...I could hardly suppress my excitement. And then we stopped at Cayo Levantado. It's a very, very ,very, small island that gained popularity years ago by the Bacardi rum commercials.




For years it was an uninhabited island, but now a big hotel is there, (taking up much of the island), and day trippers from the cruise ships come here literally by the thousands....for that deserted island experience don't ya know.(!) There were so many people on that tee tiny island I'm surprised it didn't sink into the bay. Since I'm in the travel industry it may seem odd for me to admit this but, the tourist always destroys what he is looking for...by finding it. This has never been more evident to me than when I saw the beach at Cayo Levantado.

Not even room on that beach for an empty speedo.

Samana bay has been called "the biggest singles bar for the Humpback whales in the world". They come here every year to mate and the males vie for the females' attention by serenading them, (their songs are the longest and most complex in the animal kingdom) and in general just showing off and strutting their stuff. Weighing in at about 40-60 tons (80, 000-120,000 pounds!), and ranging in length from 40-50 feet (about the size of a school bus!), when two males compete for the same female they can become aggressive, slamming into each other and slapping the virtual kelp out of each other with their large pectoral fins and tail flukes. Gee, I was thinking, I hope they're feeling frisky today!

There are lots of strict rules and regulations that must be adhered to or the boat captains will lose their licenses. http://www.whalesamana.com/ lists them all. (click on regulations) The diagram above gives you an example of the distance the boat must keep from a mother and her calf.

When we get pretty close to the sanctuary grounds the engine is put in neutral and we sit and wait, frantically scanning the sea for a whale spout. Each boat is only allowed to stay out near the whales for thirty minutes. Milagrito spots one in the distance. "Attencion! Una familia!!" and we race off in hot pursuit. When the engine was idled again because we were so close to the whales, all thirteen of the other passengers stood up AT THE SAME TIME and leaned over the right side of the boat, clicking away with their cameras. I was, as my luck would have it, or maybe not, on the left side of the boat and feeling the boat tip dangerously to the right, I pushed all my weight to port. I glanced at Milagrito and he was doing the same! The whales move quickly away, but we spot more in another area and speed off again to get a closer look. We stop again. "Ballenas Alla!!" comes the shout and again to the right all the passengers jump up. Throwing caution over the proverbial side of the boat, now I'm out of my seat too. (Heck, I've got this handy dandy life preserver and I'm a fair swimmer.)

This is what I saw first...two spouting blowholes!

(Whales are the only mammals who must consciously breathe, meaning they have to actively choose when to take every breath of their lives.)

I snapped this picture of a fluke....
And then they were gone.

(Their flukes, tails,

are like human

fingerprints and

no two are

alike.)

Adios, Ballenas! For now...

"Vamanos!" Our time was up. But I'll be back. As soon as we get to shore, I'm taking the next boat out again....

http://www.latinamericayourway.net/

Do you know the way...?

....To Santa Barbara de Samana?

Traveling North from Santo Domingo, the scenery changes dramatically. In what seems like the blink of an eye, the big city life in the capital vanishes and is replaced by a sparsely populated agricultural society. Hills soon emerge in the distance and groves of date nut trees and rice fields appear.

Trucks laden with pineapples and bananas head to market. Fruit and veggie stands can be found everywhere, in many cases just trucks moving around from corner to corner, and they sell the usual: Bananas, mangos, eggplants, and oranges. None of which are native to the Island, but introduced by the Spaniards. When Columbus arrived he found bountiful crops of pineapple, coconut, sweet potato, corn and avocado.

The people live in small clapboard houses, often windowless with sand floors, clustered along the highway and the countryside. Some look as if the next tropical storm would blow them over. A lucky few boast concrete block homes. This is a third world country, something a person can easily forget while knocking back a few frosty beverages in a sidewalk cafe in Santo Domingo.

On the day I arrived, the small town of Santa Barbara de Samana was a tranquil town on a beautiful bay. The sound of moorings creaking with the tide, the glint of the sun on the water, coconut trees everywhere reaching for the sky...

And then..they...arrived....

During the months of Jan-March, Samana is a popular stopping place for tourists and cruise ships hoping to get a close look at the Humpback whales who travel here every year from the North Atlantic to mate and birth their calves. It's big business. So big the government built this new, pastel colored, facade of shops along the waterfront to hide the real town just behind. That way the "travelers" on the ships that never get off, or when they do, don't venture very far...would have a nice impression of the town. They're really just props and I never saw one open. Just like a movie set.

Not that the "real" town is so bad, or so unattractive to warrant the expensive "facade". It's just a normal, functioning town, with everyone just going about the business of life.

Cruise ships never turn off their engines. Even at anchor they need to provide all the amenities, electricity, etc, for thousands of people! Would the constant hum of their motors make the whales wary and illusive? I've traveled a long way to see them and I'm now a little wary myself.

Next post....In Search of the Humpback Whale. If you are interested in some info on these endangered, gentle, giants and other whales look here http://www.whalecenter.org/