Another Special Day Swimming with Humpback Whales on the Silver Bank

Over the years our guests have had some incredible experiences when they swim with whales on the Silver Bank. This day was one for the books. In March 2020 we encountered this group of whales in beautiful weather and lovely blue water and were lucky enough to be part of their hypnotizing ballet. I use that word because that is how you feel when it is over: like you’ve been hypnotized. Your perception of time is distorted and an hour can feel like ten minutes and it is a bit disorienting to come back to reality.

Video just can’t impart the same full effect but it can give a hint of it. The video below is just one single, continuous clip, with ambient sound. Early in the video and several times throughout you can hear me making my imitation humpback vocalizations. Sometimes in these highly interactive social situations the whales will be vocalizing between themselves and even with the swimmers, too. On occasion my feeble attempts do actually elicit a response. Does that make me some sort of whale-whisperer? I don’t know but it sure is fun to make that kind of connection when it happens.

And in fact you can hear the whales themselves vocalizing very briefly at the 01:48 point in the video, and then toward the end between 03:26 – 03:40 and from 03:55 to the end. Theirs is the very high-pitched version of my attempted squealing. Always very exciting!

Also worth noticing is a bit of whale poo being released by the next closest whale to the right at the 02:25 mark. The whales aren’t eating anything during their weeks and months on the Silver Bank so this isn’t something we see very often, either.

We spent had a great time with these whales on that day, with four present close or in the distance and even a fifth one joined in for a while at one point. The two stars were very interactive, there was much more to the experience than this one clip, and the other two would occasionally come swooping close by and beneath us. It was absolutely exhilarating. As always you just can’t imagine what in the world they are thinking? But whatever it is, I’m glad they had the thoughts they did.

If you’d like to learn more about swimming with the humpback whales on the Silver Bank, Dominican Republic, spend some time exploring the rest of our website and blog posts (if you liked this post, don’t miss our Cruise Reports). And if you have any questions or would like to make a plan to see and swim with the whales yourself, send me an email at CaptGene@ConsciousBreathAdventures.com