Right Whale Trip Report 2023

Puerto Piramides, Argentina
August 27 - September 2, 2023

August 28, 2023 - Day One - This is the first day of our filming trip to document the Southern Right Whales off Argentina.

This is not a typical trip, since it is for pro shooters only. But after only one day here I understand why.

This place is special, and I mean it is special. WOW, WOW, WOW!

I have never been to this part of Argentina before and I am sold, it is such an amazing place. There are right whales everywhere. A month ago they counted 1300 right whales in the place we are visiting and it is not a big area.

Did I mention that there are whales everywhere??

It is magic!

Today was supposed to be our first day in the water, but we woke to 40 knot winds, cloudy skies, and cold, (of course it is always cold).

So we decided to spend it on land searching for wildlife, and wildlife we found.

We started out the morning checking out a couple of different flamingo colonies here, and happily captured some decent footage and stills of these goofy, yet beautiful birds.

After that we went to a beach to check out the right whales. They said this place was the best place in the world to watch these whales.

Now…

I have seen whales on many different beaches around the world, so I was not that excited about visiting this spot, because normally the whales are really far away. So seeing a whale from a beach is never that cool.

BUT DAMN!!!

The whales were right there, next to the shore line, and I mean right there!

It was insane. A lot of moms and calves were so close, rolling and playing in the shore breaks. Rubbing their bellies on the gravel of the ocean floor. In the distance, whales were breaching all over the place.

There were crowds of people all watching the show, it was so amazing. I was floored with everything I was witnessing.

I have never seen anything like this before, it was one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced.

On the beach, a Patagonian fox, hanging around, hunting for cavys, and hoping for handouts from people who were eating on the beach. The fox was not shy, so for sure it was being fed by the tourists. It is illegal to feed the animals here, but it’s obvious people still do.

I have never seen this species of fox before, so although I felt bad that the fox was being fed by people, and they should stop.

But, maybe not today! Or at least they need to stop after we leave. LOL

While the fox was running around, I dropped down and snapped as many images as possible of this beautiful little wild dog.

Our buddy Nathan sent up his drone to film the spectacle (We have a permit for that), and he captured some amazing clips from the air.

Even though we were not able to get out on the water and swim with the whales, we had an EPIC first day… I am already excited about what we might be able to experience tomorrow.

The adventure begins!

August 29, 2023 - Day Two. Damn what a day! We finally got out to swim with the right whales and all I can say is it was the greatest day of my life with whales. I was playing with a whale, I was diving down and waving my arms, and the whale was interacting with me.

With all of us!

It would bob its head up and down, and start rolling. It got excited, like a dog would (for lack of a better description). It got fired up and wanting to play and interact with me.

It was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. I truly have no proper words to describe how amazing the moment was for me and how I feel about these very special animals and this very special place.

It is sacred and should continue to be so.

It is hard to get permits to swim with these whales and I truly hope it stays that way. It is by far the most special of all the whale species we get to swim with as far as I can tell. 

There is nothing but magic out here. 

*All images and videos were captured under Government permit.

They might be aggressive, I don’t know, but I would like to find out. 

Along the way I finally got to see a mara! I have been wanting to photograph these guys. They are native to Patagonia, so I was hoping to see them up close, and Lara, our guide found me a pair. They are so cute.

We also got to see the Southern Mountain Cavys, or cuis chicos, as the locals call them. They are tiny rodents that are all over the place here. Of course they kept telling us they were all over the place, but we had trouble finding them. When we finally broke the curse and saw our first cavy, suddenly, they were everywhere.

We finished the day on the beach watching the whales again. There had to be over 100 there. We stayed out till past dark to watch the super moon rise. It was beautiful and perfect way to end a beautiful and perfect day.

Conditions are good enough to dive tomorrow so we are going out to the water!

August 31, 2023 - Day Four - We had a good day in the water with the whales. It was cold today, but it was a damn good day. 

The winds were kicked up towards the end of the day and we hit low tide so the vis crapped out. But we had whales and quite a few of them, including two pairs of moms and calves.

Of course our operators prefer not us to swim with the calves, because the calves do not know boundaries and will try and rub up against you. 

So they had us back off when the calves rolled in. They are so awesome.

Of course for filming purposes, that is the best. Especially because the water conditions were not the best. So closer is definitely better.

We ended up finding a couple of whales in shallow water and we stayed with them for the rest of our time out at sea. 

They both wanted to interact and were very excited about us being there. 

Eventually one of the whale left, but one of the whales stayed with us for over an hour, while we filmed and photographed it. 

Conditions were ok. There was a lot of sediment in the water that was milking it up. However, every once in a while the vis would clean up enough for us to get  some quality images and video clips. 

Right whales are definitely my new favorite whale!

September 1, 2023 - Day Five. Our final day at sea and it was easily the best day in the water I have ever experienced!

WOW WOW WOW!!!

Last night, we had a beautiful dinner cooked up for us by our host. It was so good. During the evening we were warned that tomorrow we might get shut out due to the winds. 

We were going to try and get out for half a day though. The morning looked good, but the afternoon was going to be shot.

We will take whatever time we can get out there. This place is so special and so amazing… any amount of time out there is worth it.

We went out to the area we visited on the previous day. I liked the shallow water there, it gave us the best light. 

Our captain Sebastian looked around for some whales for us and found us a ghost!

A white whale approached us. Every so often a right whale is born with white skin. It fades as the whale ages and it becomes a sort of pale grey. 

These whales are absolutely gorgeous animals and make for great photo subjects.

Our guests jumped in first, and all had some quality encounters with this whale. I waited on board for them to capture some footage of this animal, before I got my chance to get in to document him.

Sadly when it was my turn, the whale left.

I was gutted. 

A pair of mating whales swam by, and our whale followed them to see what was going on, and see if he could play with them I guess. Or join in… we are not sure?

So they all took off and I missed my chance.

Broken hearted, we turned the boat on and went to go look for more whales to document. 

Thankfully, after a short ride we found our whale again. 

So we turned the boat off and waited to see if he would approach us again. 

This is how the interactions are done here. The captains will wait to see if the whales are interested in interacting. If they are, the whales swim up to the boats. The boats do not chase the whales thankfully.

The encounters are so much more magical that way.

I was happy that the mating pair wanted nothing to do with our whale. So he returned to play with us some more and I got my chance.

It was an epic epic session. We stayed with this whale for almost two hours. We also had a mom and a calf doing fly byes the entire time. We stayed with Ghost (nickname for our whale), and every so often the mom and calf would swim by to get a good look at us. 

It was such an amazing time, and an experience I will never forget.

The Government permits to be able to swim and document these animals are extremely hard to get. We were all thrilled and humbled to be able to share time with these very special whales.

The winds had arrived and we were forced to say goodbye to our beautiful whale. Every single one of us was grinning from ear to ear trying to process what had just happened. To quote my buddy Nat. “There are no words possible to describe what just happened.”

On the way back in our Captain found me one of the sea birds I was hoping to photograph during my time here. An Imperial Cormorant. When the sun light hits the feathers of these birds their colors pop… they are so beautiful.

Man, what a special place Patagonia is… what a special animal.

This trip far exceeded my expectations. Easily one of the greatest wildlife experiences of my life.

Just wow wow wow.

Until next year Patagonia… I absolutely LOVE YOU!!!