In the last weeks there have seldom been sperm whales to be seen before Pico, but this morning the Vigía da Queimada sighted some. It did not take long before we saw our first sperm whale. It was a mother whale with her child. I tried to photograph both under water, but unfortunately they kept too large a distance for a good picture. We moved position out towards the open sea, with the Vigía da Queimada behind us. After some time, we saw three sperm whales. My skipper - João Quaresma - brought me into position, and I snorkelled in the direction the three large whales were taking. I could tell their direction exactly from their blowing, and knew that they must pass me if they kept the same course. The whales noticed me and stopped for a moment. I acted very calm, and made no movement. Very slowly, they came closer and became larger and larger. It is an amazing experience to see the peacefulness and gentleness of the animals, weighing probably 40 tons each. The three whales allowed me to swim between them and to dive with one of them. The whale showed me his belly and stretched his fins out very relaxedly. It all looks very slow underwater, but I could not keep up with the whales' speed. I was picked up by the skipper and brought to the animals again. Again and again using the same method - snorkelling in their direction of travel and waiting for the whales. On the last try, one of the sperm whales stood himself up vertically in front of me and made the typical sperm whale click noises. He turned his head to me and looked at me. I photographed his eye because the whale was too close to photograph anything else. A macro lens would have been perfect :-) I am sure no-one has photographed whale eyes with a macro lens before :-) After the encounter I had the feeling that the animals wanted to communicate with me. It would have been easy for them to dive away, or not to approach me in the first place. I photographed my new friends finally with the Pico volcano in the background, and we left them to travel through the ocean. All the best! Ciao.

Written on 29.09.2006 at 02:49, Category: Images, Knowledge, Photography, Travel.
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