Humpback whale - Sardine Run 21004

I've just come back from the Sardine Run in South Africa, which was an amazing experience. Let me say at the outset that we only got one divable baitball (at that time, we were the only boat that had been able to dive on a baitball this year, though that changed the day we left), and the shutter control on my housing didn't work, so I have no images of that. But I hardly care - it was enough to be there.

The highpoint - and what stands as one of the peak experiences of my entire life - was snorkelling with a friendly humpback. The viz was terrible; I was so goddamned excited that most of the time I forgot I had a camera; bouncing in the chop I couldn't read the viewfinder information to see whether I had exposure right or not (I didn't), plus the housing was already malfunctioning - I only had 12 exposures from a 20 minute encounter. Still....

Easier shooting conditions and much better viz when we snorkelled with a super-pod of common dolphins....

(These were all were taken with Fuji S2 in Subal housing, no strobes (obviously), Nikon 12-24 DX lens at 12 mm - as wide as I could go.

More images (mostly surface, but including some u/w stuff) are up on my website: http://www.tabula-international.com/

Frogfish (Robert Delfs)

Wow.......that was some trip

Karl

Wow Robert, those are sOme images! It's good to see that you didn't let your housing trouble detract from the experience.

Cheers

James

Robert, was there any issues with safety being this close to a humpback?

I definitely want to give this a try! Great shots, BTW.

Fair question, with no simple answer. Obviously any close interaction with an animal this big could be potentially dangerous. I think it's something that has to be considered case by case, or perhaps whale by whale.

There were actually two humpbacks that people from our boat swam with that day. The second humpback was lob-tailing - raising the lower part of its body and slamming its flukes onto the surface - when we first encountered it, and it continued to do so after three of our people entered the water, though it never did this in the direction of the swimmers. (There's a pic of this happening on my website, if you're interested).

I chose not to go in the water with this whale, because I didn't think it was safe. Even if the whale was trying to avoid endangering us - which some of us believed - I still felt there was a risk that someone might be hurt. The difficulty in keeping track of the whale and other swimmers in the waves (on the surface) and bad viz below were also factors.

The first whale, on the other hand, moved very slowly whenever snorkellers were close, repeatedly moving away then slowly reapproaching, positioning herself close to individual swimmers so that she could see them with one of her eyes, rolling on her back, thrusting a pectoral fin up into the air, etc. She (we think it was a she) was clearly aware of the swimmers and intentionally continuing and resuming the interaction.

I'd never been this close to an animal this big before, and I was very nervous at first. But as soon as I was in close to this whale, my worries quickly disappeared. At one point, I had to duck and weave a bit to avoid her pectoral fin, but the motion was very slow. (I'd decided to avoid touching the whale.) There was no doubt in my mind that this whale was aware of us and taking care not to unintentionally injure us. Of course that could simply by me/our fantasy and anthropomorphising, but I don't think so. You probably had to be there.

I should stress that this is very unusual behavior for humpbacks, at least in this area. People do attempt to get shots of whales underwater, but you don't expect any interaction. These whales are migrating, and tend to be moving fast. The procedure is that the boat drops the snorkellers a few hundred meters in front of a single whale. If the drop is done right and the whale doesn't change course, you might get a quick glimpse as it swims by, but that's the most you expect.

These two encounters were very different from the norm. I have no idea why. In both cases, when we first encountered the whales, they seemed to be taking a break from the migration, staying more or less in one place. The first whale was broaching when we first saw her, the second - as I mentioned above - was lob-tailing, all by itself. (This may be unusual as well.) Most of the whales we saw were moving, and in groups of two or three, and the lob-tailing behavior seemed to be part of real or mock fighting between two males over a female.

I hope this is helpful.

Very, very helpful, thankyou!

I haven't been able to find much info about diving with whales. I have observed them splashing their fins around, and under the fin at this time looks like a bad place to be!

Humpbacks should be passing through my part of the world next month, and I've been thinking about how I could get some shots underwater. You were snorkelling rather than scuba-ing? Would scuba work or do you think the bubbles would limit your ability to get close enough to the whale. It sounds like this is an organised activity in your part of the world? Whale shark diving is popular just south of me, but definitely no whale diving round here!

Best wishes,

Rob

Rob... you may want to look in to the regulations governing whale interaction in Australia. I seem to recall that you're not even allowed in the water with them... certainly, you have to do the same "upwind stop" maneuver that Robert is describing above, I think you need to stop a minimum of 200 metres away, but I'm going on memory here.

Given the amount of interest in Southern Right and Humpback whales on the eastern coast of Oz, there does seem to be rather a dearth of underwater shots of them from Australian waters. I suspect that there are significant legislative impediments to this practice.

[ edit: very offtopic... Rob, you're going to love Outback Jack when it makes it on to Australian television, assuming you watch it that is. They took an east Melbourne prettyboy called "Vadim Dale" and dumped him in the outback (looks like Arnhem land from the bits I've seen on adverts over here) with a group of twelve ditzy American mall-crawlers, and the girls have to compete for his attention. I mention it here only because this week they are going "down the smoke" to Perth :shock: ]

Rob (Whitey) I think Craig says is true, i was Diving out of Exmouth WA last September and i was told that you are unable to Dive or Snorkel with the Humpback Whales (unless they came to you !!!).

You still have some fantastic Whale Shark opportunities second quater of the year (I love West Coast diving)

Regards

Shannon

I snorkeled with the whales in the silver banks near the Dominican Republic. There you could get in the water with them but no scuba was allowed. I don't even think scuba would even be practical since they could be gone in an instant. We had some marvelous encounters with mothers and calves there. Got some nice shots on film.

Tony

Yes, we were snorkelling. The perception was that whales - like dolphins - wouldn't like the sound of regulator bubbles, though I don't actually know if that is true.

South Africa isn't my part of the world - I live in Indonesia. Although diving with this humpback turned out to be the highpoint of the trip for me, this was not organized whale diving - the objective of the trip was the Sardine Run - baitballs and the predators that follow them. Humpbacks just happen to be migrating up the East Coast of Africa at the same time, but aren't involved with the sardines,lthough I was told that two humpbacks were observed bubble-netting near PSJ this year.

Whale and dolphin watching are the major activities while waiting for the sardines and their predators to arrive, and people do jump in the water with them when they can, but a quick swim-by is generally all you get in the water, if that.

I believe organized opportunities to dive/snorkel with humpbacks are possible in Tonga and a few other places in the South Pacific, something I'm looking into for next year. Mozambique - where the humpbacks we saw were headed - is also a possibility.

Edit: There's a bit more discussion of the 300 m limit for approaching whales on the Nikon 80-400 VR thread under Tips and Techniques ..

http://www.wetpixel.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic...ic-t-5180.phtml

..where I posted some topside pictures of humpbacks taken with that lens.

Frogfish