"Tales from the Road"
Today is our first day in and on the water, seeking out sperm whales off Dominica Island.
The stories can be found on our “The Daily’s” page.
We won’t be updating our blog during our time here on Dominica, other than this post of course.
I will be updating the trip report at the end of everyday.
So if you want to know what is going on, please visit the link I will be sharing at the end of this post.
Thank you so much.
Blogging will resume when the sperm whale trip ends…
The week begins!
This weekend I spent my days doing normal life kind of things. Repairing things, lawn care… Domestic stuff that has nothing to do with the wildlife world.
So I will stop there with the boring unrelated to why you visit this page stories… on to the good stuff.
This week is prep week. I am sorting through last-minute gear prepping for next week’s expedition to Dominica.
Dominica is such a cool island in the Caribbean. There is a freshwater river for every day of the year. At least that is what the islanders boast.
365 rivers and hot streams that pepper the island, which is really cool.
It has waterfalls and lots and lots of forests. It is a beautiful island. A must-visit kind of place.
What is exciting for me and for our friends who are joining us, is the very healthy population of sperm whales that call the waters surrounding the island home.
I am looking forward to a great week of swimming with the whales. Hoping for magic to happen.
There are several pods / families of sperm whales that call Dominica home.
Some are friendlier than others. Most seek out interactions with people. Some don’t and that is ok.
Those whales we leave alone. But the whales that do want to share time with people, those whales are true magic and moments with them is the stuff that dreams are made of.
Either way, it is going to be a great week of good friends, beautiful scenery, and a week of life- in and on the ocean with big animals.
It doesn’t get any better than that!
Have a beautiful week everyone!
Image by Markus Davids.
This is our second trip of the 2022 wildlife photography season. We visited Magdalena Bay Mexico for grey whales. This is an extremely special place. The wildlife here is some of the best in the world. During the early winter season we visit Mag Bay to swim with striped marlin and humpback whales. in the month of February we are here to play with friendly grey whales. Here is the photo report from this years trip… I hope you enjoy!
This blog is from my travel journal. The signal in Puerto San Carlos where we visit the grey whales is horrible so I was not able to do much while I was there. But I am back in Texas, playing catch up on blogs and images and emails. I wanted to share moments and memories from our second trip of the season…
February 7, 2022 - Day one of our grey whale expedition. The adventure begins. We are in Puerto San Carlos, with the next four days to be spent seeking out grey whales off Magdalena Bay.
We headed out in two boats; Mari took one boat with the girls and our buddy Jay, I took another boat out with the guys. We split the boats up into two groups to keep our numbers small. I prefer to have only four people in the boats with us so that there is plenty of room to lean over and play with the whales when they approach.
Eva and Lori are new to the wildlife world, but are now very addicted. Welcome to our Normal Ladies.
We left the dock super early and headed out in search of adventure. Damn, I love saying that. San Carlos during this time of year is chilly. It is the winter season, and the mornings are cold. So we were all bundled up as we motored across the Bay. We snapped images of the rising sun as we headed out.
It took us an hour to get to the area where the grey whales hang out. Once we arrived, we enjoyed the sight and sounds of whale blows scattered all around. The sound of a whale coming up for a breath of air is genuinely one of the most incredible sounds you will ever hear in nature. Hearing several blows all around you - there are no words for how epic that is, love that sound!
We hung out with the whales for the rest of the day, patiently waiting for a flirty female to approach our boat. After about thirty minutes, we had whales swim up and begin rolling and rubbing up against our boat. The excitement you see with everyone on the boat, including me, is the best.
I love how fired up everyone gets when a whale approaches. The boys dropped their cameras in, snapping away as the whales came in for a rub. On Mari’s boat, the girls squealed with excitement. Yes, there were a lot of girls screaming on her boat, probably on mine too, BUT, I chose to ignore those sounds to protect the innocent. Lol
We played with the whales for a long time. The whales were swimming from boat to boat, seeking out attention. For some reason, they enjoyed visiting Mari’s boat compared to ours. My guess is the girls were more handsy with the whales than we were. There was more focus on snapping underwater images of them than playing with them on our boat. So I guess the whales got bored and went back to them for more love.
In the afternoon, our Captain spotted many birds near the surface, about two miles away. Signs that there might be a baitball, so he asked us if we wanted to check it out, and off we went. We picked up Jay from Mari’s boat and headed out to the open ocean.
Diving pelicans, picking off sardines from the baitball.
We got closer and ended up motoring into a superpod of common dolphins—tens of thousands of dolphins were in the area hunting sardines. We tried a few jumps with them, but they kept their distance and dropped down deep, too deep for us at least. We could see them, but they were not close enough to try and snap images of them.
So we just enjoyed the topside show they gave us. It was a lot of fun trying to photograph them. Snapping jumping images of dolphins is always a challenge, you get a card full of crappy images. But every once in a while you get lucky and snap a gem.
For scenes like this, video always tells a better story of what we are experiencing. Plus with video, you can capture the sounds that thousands of dolphins make is fire! There are so many dolphins, you can actually hear their underwater whistles while standing on the boat.
After we left the dolphins, we arrived at the baitball, and jumped in to see what what was left of it. It was still a nice-sized baitball of sardines, with about 6 to 7 sea lions hunting them. It was a static ball, and the sea lions were extremely friendly with us and kept coming up to our cameras. The water was green, the visibility was not great and it was freezing cold - but damn was it fun! We stayed there for about 45 minutes and then returned to the Bay to finish up our day with the whales.
Overall it was a fantastic first day in and on the water. We are already looking forward to what tomorrow brings.
Thank you guys for reading.
August 13, 2021 - (7:03AM)
This week has been a bit more challenging to find whales. But that is the way nature is, and I wouldn't want it any other way. It should not be easy to see one of the most desired whales in the world. There should be some challenge to it. Of course, you do not want it to be too challenging, because damn, it has been tough.
It is wild how quickly things change. Last week there were a lot of whale families hanging around. This week, most of the pods have moved off to deeper and wilder waters to hunt and maybe hide. We also encountered a few predators while we were out here. Pilot whales and pygmy killer whales showed up. Of course, these are the predators we got to see. We did not see, or do not know if any other predators arrived when we were not there. It is not easy being a whale in the wild, especially with small babies. Even though you are one of the biggest animals in the ocean, survival is not guaranteed.
Gervais Beaked whale
We head out today for day five, which means we only have two days left. The encounters we have had so far have been brief. In four days we have only had one encounter that was really good. Other than that, we have been blessed with so-so interactions.
Yesterday was our first official skunking. We saw no sperm whales, not a distant whale spout, no flukes… nothing. We did see a Gervais beaked whale and a pygmy sperm whale, but we got no water time with them. Although had I reacted quicker; I may have gotten an underwater proof of life shot of the beaked whale. It passed by the boat decently close. It would have been amazing to photograph that extremely rare whale. But I was too slow. And that is how it goes, you have to be ready for those moments if you want to see amazing things.
Well, we are heading out to sea. My fingers and toes are crossed.
I am hoping for magic… real magic today.
We need it.
8:33PM (End of day 5 Report)
TODAY was EPIC!!! WOW, WOW, WOW! Is all I can say. Damn man, after a frustrating and slow start to this week's trip, it is so good to be able to walk off the boat having the experiences we had today. We saw our first whales and got in the water around 9:30 AM. After that, it was non-stop; the whale action just kept going. Our final jump in with the whales was around 1:30-ish. We were all exhausted but happy. That feeling of pure joy vibrates through you. I am sitting here writing in my hotel room, and my head is still buzzing from it.
The whales were feeling very social, and thankfully not in an eating mood. They instead were rubbing up on each other, rolling and playing. They were in a great mood. These are the encounters you dream of. Most of the time, the encounters you get are when the whales come up from a long feeding dive. They are tired and trying to replenish their blood with more oxygen to go down for another deep dive. So they completely ignore us or want nothing to do with us and will either pass by us quickly or just drop back down into the black abyss. Those encounters are short, and the images and videos from those moments are ok.
Spy Hopping. Not a great image but I wanted to show you what it looks like.
However, when the whales are feeling social, DAMN - those encounters are fun. The whales will swim right up to you, rolling around, turning upside down, some will spy hop,- and when the whales look at you… you can feel them really look at you. I am sure in those moments, they wish they could talk to us in a voice we could understand. I think the joy that would spill out of their souls in those moments would be too much for us to handle.
I know I am getting woo-woo right now, but I am on a high, and I do wish I could speak to them. I really do. Well, today, I did have one teenager speak to me, and I completely understood her. During one encounter, I was swimming towards a group of about six whales. I had not even gotten there yet when this fiery young lady stopped swimming. She turned around to face me and started clicking me hard with her sonar. I thought for sure she was trying to explode my brain, like in the movie Scanners. Thankfully there is nothing breakable in there, so I was safe. As she was clicking me, she let out one last click with what felt like a scream, telling me to Back Off!!! I don't speak whale, but I did understand that message loud and clear.
I was hoping for magic today, and we got it. I am so happy for all our guests who joined us this week. These are the days you want for them. You don't always get them, so you appreciate them to your very core when you do.
Damn, I am happy!
August 8, 2021 - Sunday, my day off. Wow, what a week it has been. It is hard to put into words what we experienced out here. However, I feel lucky and blessed to have been out here, especially with the covid craziness. It was an adventure just trying to get to this Island. Sadly our buddy Tom was supposed to be here, but due to covid restrictions, he wasn't able to make it. My heart broke, not just because I wanted to see and share another adventure with my dear friend, but also because he could not be out here with us to experience the magic of this place. Miss and luv you my friend.
Dominica truly is a special place. The Island is magical and rugged, and wild. It is so green, thick with vegetation. The whole Island is mountains, and the villages are built on mountainsides. It has 365 rivers, and waterfalls, and hot springs, coming from active volcanoes. The Island looks like it belongs in a Jurassic Park movie, just spectacular.
The bonus is it also has a population of sperm whales that live here year-round, which is why we are here. There are no words to describe the magic we experienced this week. Everything you hope to see when diving with animals like this we did. We experienced every behavior, except courting mating behavior, because that happens in winter, not summer. Of course, no birthing either.
This week the behaviors we witnessed were; social behaviors (playing, rubbing, play biting, or gumming each other), sleeping whales, babies drinking milk, babies trying to play with us, adults trying to play with us (zero social distancing when they were doing that), breaching, spy hopping, it was fire... WOW, WOW, WOW!
We also got to see pilot whales and pygmy killer whales, although they did not let us near them. We tried, but they wanted nothing to do with us. We had a massive pod of Fraser's dolphins come through, as well as Atlantic spotted dolphins. No water time, but I did manage a few jumping shots of them. I still need better images of the Fraser's jumping, but we saw them almost every day, so I'm hoping for another chance.
We all captured so much video and stills of the whales; it is hard to figure out what to share on social media and this blog. The most challenging images to capture during this trip were breaching sperm whale shots because they do not breach very often, so you have to be ready when they do. However, with a lot of effort and the help our guides, I managed a couple of photos of it. Unfortunately, it is still not the one I am after, but I have another week to try.
Breaching sperm whale
Overall it was a fantastic trip with incredible encounters and thrilled sunburnt people. A huge thanks go out to our friends who joined us this week. Thank you for joining us out there… we luv you guys and looking forward to another adventure with you guys.
Thank you guys for reading, thanks you for comments and thank you for following along on this crazy journey of ours, I truly appreciate it my friends.
May 29, 2021 - What an exhausting, amazing, and surprising trip this was for our guests and me. No words to express how grateful I am for having the privilege of bringing people out into nature and showing them the beauty of the natural world.
This trip was not perfect, but it was a great trip. The O’s sadly never arrived for us. They were always a bit too far, showing up in other areas that were many miles away. However, the ocean did provide an abundance of wildlife for us to enjoy, and if you were only here for the O’s, then you are missing the forest for the trees.
The Sea of Cortez is a magical place - we encountered three different species of whales, including the biggest of them all, the blue whale. Along with two species of dolphins, tens of thousands of Mobula rays, baitballs, sea lions - it was so much fun. The ocean just kept surprising us and bringing us gifts.
On our final two days in the water, we spent an hour with a friendly pair of juvenile humpback whales. One of them was breaching over and over again. It would breach, then flipper slap the surface, right next to our boat. We stayed with them for about an hour and left them to try and find the O’s. Reports came back that they kept playing for over three hours after we left. Insane.
Breaching right next to our boat, I did not have the right lens.
We also encountered a super pod of coastal bottlenose dolphins. We got to jump in and play with this pod as they swam around us, some of them coming in close to see what we were. It was a lot of fun. After we were done with our time in the water, we watched them breaching and jumping in our boat’s wake—many opportunities for stills and video. What was unique about these dolphins was their size and color. They are massive dolphins, and their skin is a charcoal grey, and when the sun touches them, they look black—such beautiful dolphins.
On our final day, we had flat calm seas and found a mating group of mobulas. Easily over ten thousand mobulas were in this mating ball, and it was a sight to see.
They kept popcorning all around - even when we were in the water, a fantastic way to end the trip.
THE FOLLOWING DAY…
I dropped off Mark, Parag, and Boud at the airport, said goodbye, and then dropped off our trusty steed Alice at the rental shop. Garin, Sara, and I went to Cabo to jump on an afternoon session with my buddy Jacob and Cabo Shark Tours to try and find some sharks.
The conditions were horrible, absolutely horrible. When we jumped in the water, we spent most of our time chasing the boat being pushed by the wind in giant swells. It was worth it; we ended up swimming with four silky sharks, including one that was heavy with pilot fish.
Finally, I asked Jacobo to untie the baitbox from the boat and let it float free. We no longer had the swells pushing us around and the ocean, despite the rising swells was nice and calm. It was nice!
After that, the silkies were a bit shy but still stayed around. We also had a small school of young mahi-mahi hanging around - behind them, a seawolf came in. A huge marlin swam by us. It was magic and a hell of a great way to end this epic two weeks here off Baja.
Mahi-mahis.
A huge thanks to our friends who joined us these past two weeks - and to my buddies who helped me out in Baja during our time at sea. Thank you for sharing this adventure with me - these amazing experiences are forever engrained in my soul. Until the next one!!!
Today was day one of Week Two of our Baja adventure. Yesterday I picked up the group in our rental van. Whenever I rent a vehicle for our groups, I find it important to give it a name. Last week we dubbed our van, The Grey Whale. This week our crew added some deeper thoughts into what we were going to name our ride. After a few back and forths, we dubbed our big beautiful white beast Alice.
We chose Alice as our van's name because somewhere in the 1960s, there was an albino orca out in the wild; the researchers had dubbed her Alice. Well, since orcas are one of the animals we are all hoping to encounter this week, it was a fitting name.
We began our morning in perfect conditions. It was flat calm, with no wind, and our group was excited about getting things going. We left the marina and motored into the bay. After a few miles, we spotted some birds dropping down to feed on a bait ball at the ocean's surface. There was a bunch of common dolphins and sea lions hunting the bait ball. Flashes of them would explode out of the water.
We quickly geared up and jumped in to watch the carnage that was happening just below the surface. Sadly the water visibility was horrible. We could see the bait ball and the predators attacking it, but barely. It was murky. I snapped awful images of the excitement - it was just fun getting to dive on a bait ball. We jumped in and stayed with it as long as we could. It was great when it was just us. However, two other boats showed up, and the waters quickly got crowded, so we decided to say goodbye to these beautiful babies, let the other boats have some fun, and see what else we could find.
Not long after, we ran into a pair of massive finback whales. Finbacks are the second-largest whales on the planet. It truly is a privilege to be around them. We still had not heard reports of any orca activity in the area, so we decided to spend the rest of the day checking out these big badasses.
The pair of whales we encountered were not the only whales out here. There were at least ten finback whales scattered about, and it was awesome. There is something extra special about whales. No words can honestly describe them. We spent most of our time with them until we got a radio call from a friend, letting us know that orcas were spotted about five miles away from where we were. We said bye to the whales and hauled ass in search of the sea pandas. Sadly after a couple of hours of searching, we could not find them. We decided to call it a day and began a slow ride back home to the marina.
Of course, we had to stop and snap some images of a colony of sea lions sleeping, fighting, and barking on a tiny island of rocks. Sea dogs are always a lot of fun. We thought about getting in the water but decided just to go home - maybe tomorrow.
Overall, day one was great and a great way to kick off a new week of adventures. I can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us!
It's 11 PM, and I am tired. I have been trying to do this for a few days, and already I am too tired to write - but I need to write. Well, no need to pretend…. we did not get orcas. They were a no-show.
The orcas were around today, BUT they were 73 miles away from us. This morning when we left port, we had to decide which way we would go - South on the ocean or North. I chose North, and I was wrong. Three hours into our day, we got a report that orcas were hunting dolphins on a seamount. Sadly the seamount was 73 miles away from us, so we were screwed; it was too far for us to travel to. So close, yet so far!
While up in the North, we were looking for mobula rays to dive with. We found them, they were a bit scattered, but after some searching, we found a group, or a school of them, whatever you call them. Once we did, the boys tore it up and had some fun with them - until Al saw a blow in the distance. Our captain confirmed it, and I called the boys back to the boat.
It was humpback whales!
We hauled ass over to the whales, and they turned out to be a humpback, mom, and calf. We stayed with them for a bit, trying to snap some images of them. Finally, the whales were tired of our presence, and we left them alone and went back to find the mobulas. Sadly we did not find them, so we decided to call it a day. On the way home, a massive male humpback was breaching in the distance. It breached over and over again. It was a hell of a show, and we stayed with it for a while. Finally, this whale was tired of our presence, so we left it alone and called it a day.
Encountering humpback whales is wild, because this time of year they are supposed to be gone for the season. Maybe they are lost? Or maybe they are vacationing. lol
We have one more day tomorrow; despite all the amazing magic the ocean has given us, we are still determined to find us some orcas. Tomorrow is the day!
Thank you for reading and I hope to see you out in the world… somewhere… anywhere!
I am sitting at the airport in Reynosa, Mexico waiting for my plane to pick me up and take me to Baja for our orca and Mobula ray expedition. Super fired up about getting there already. Baja is a fantastic place, and this time of year, the ocean is thick with wildlife. These are exploratory trips because you never know what you will find. Like our pelagic trips in November off Baja, every day is different.
the adventure begins…
the orca pod we encountered.
On this trip, the goal is to find orcas, but we will also be stopping to check out any other wildlife we may find, including the tens of thousands of Mobula rays out there right now. So the potential for great encounters is there and could be epic when we see the large groups of these beauties.
Plus, this is also prime-time smooth hammerhead season off Baja, and they are probably here because of the mobulas as well. I flew out a day early to join up with one of the local shark operators to spend a morning looking for these guys. Pelagic sharks are always fun. They are hard work to chum in, but when they finally do arrive, they are so much fun.
smooth hammerhead
mating mobula rays
We ran our first trip off Baja for orcas back in 2019, and thankfully it was a success. We found them on day one and had some fantastic encounters with them. We also spent some time with mating Mobula rays which were unique and beautiful to experience. So our first trip was a truly memorable experience, which got us fired up about running another one. Sadly due to the corona crisis, we had to cancel our 2020 trip.
Despite a few hiccups along the way, we are all set to run the trip this season, and now we are just a plane ride away from it all beginning!
THE CORONA CHRONICLES BEGINS…
The goal is to share as much as I can with you guys daily—Internet permitting, of course. I should have wifi at our hotel where we will be staying to share updates nightly (when possible) with you guys. I will try not to bore you with too much writing. I am just trying to find an interesting way to share our world with you all, along with the highs and lows of the travel life in this post covid world. I tried it with videos years ago, but it was challenging to record/edit and then post, especially with sketchy wifi, so I gave up the ghost.
Anyway, they are now boarding the plane, so I got to go. But super fired up about this trip - well, two trips, we are running this one for two weeks, back-to-back, and I am excited about sharing it all with you guys.
Tomorrow morning I head out to look for smooth hammerheads… so look for a report late Tomorrow night.
big orca male we encountered in 2019.
Thank you for reading and I hope to see you out in the world… somewhere… anywhere!
