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Photo by Brandi Mueller courtesy of the Agressor Fleet
As we approached Grand Turk, Lucie, an instructor aboard the T & C Agressor, told us "Keep an ear out for humpback whales. Their singing can be heard for miles". Looking at me, Lucie continued with her infectious New Zealand accent "You don't have to worry mate. The women always KHDU LW ÀUVWµ
We suited up and splashed down onto the dive site "Chief Minister's", named because it is located directly in front of the Chief Minister of Turks and Caicos' home. The Turks and Caicos Aggressor was moored with the stern hovering over the wall making the descent to the wall very easy. The wall was pristine, beautiful and impressive, but not as vertical as many of the other sites we dove earlier in the week.
It wasn't long before Nicole, the boat's video pro, swam up to me and pointed to her ear. I must have given her the same look that a golden retriever does when you make a strange noise, because she gave me an agitated look and pointed to her ear again. I took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. What I heard was incredible, the whales were singing!
:KHQ , ÀUVW JRW EDFN RQ WKH ERDW , WROG Lucie that I heard humpbacks. " Cool... We saw humpbacks!" she replied. "Right over
there." As I looked in the direction, Lucie was pointing, a whale surfaced.
During the surface interval, the entire boat watched as a small pod of four humpbacks surfaced, took a big breath, then descended, giving the boat a big "tail wave" as they disappeared beneath the surface, followed by cheers from the boat. During lunch, we noticed a small humpback (about 20 feet in length) logging, a behavior where they stay motionless at the surface, then descend for a few minutes, then slowly ascend back to the surface to breathe. We watched with anticipation as this gentle giant eased closer and closer to the boat. After 20 minutes of both crew and divers getting more excited as the whale eased to within 100 yards of the Aggressor, Captain Dennis got up from his lunch, rang the dive bell, DQG JDYH XV D ERDW EULHÀQJ RQ VQRUNHOLQJ with the humpbacks.
/XFLH ZDV LQ ÀUVW 6KH VQRUNHOHG RYHU WKH top of the whale, then signaled for all of us to get in the water. One by one we sat GRZQ RQ WKH GLYH SODWIRUP SXW RQ RXU ÀQV and eased into the water without making D VSODVK $V D JURXS ZH ÀQQHG DV TXLFNO\ as possible, doing our best not to let our ÀQV EUHDN WKH ZDWHU VXUIDFH DQG FUHDWH
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