April 6 – April 12, 2024 

Week 12 of our 33rd Season

This year Aquatic Adventures embarks on its 33rd season of providing our guests the unique opportunity to encounter the North Atlantic humpback whales on their breeding and calving grounds, the Silver Bank. As the season unfolds, we’ll highlight some of the various encounters and experiences of our guests each week. We hope you enjoy following along!

Welcome to week twelve! It’s our last week of the season on the Silver Bank, the tenders are towing nicely behind the main ship, guests are tucked away in their beds after a delicious dinner for a ten hour transit and everyone is looking eagerly towards seeing the North Atlantic humpback whales interacting on the mating and calving grounds. Over the past eleven weeks we have experienced some incredible encounters. A singing whale rising from below, raising itself fluke-first fifteen feet in the air while we looked up from the water, dwarfed and humbled by the sight, before settling back down to sing another fifteen minutes. Mothers and calves have come so curiously close to the tender that guests had to do nothing but float at the surface as the whales continued to circle mere feet from the hull, while other mothers and calves logged in the water in front of us for hours and were seen week after week, giving us an intimate look at the development of a calf from infant to a curious toddler. 

Of course this was the week of the highly anticipated solar eclipse. On the day of, even though the Dominican Republic was not in the path of totality, we were able to see a partial eclipse. Strangely, during this time we noticed some odd behavior in all the wildlife on the Silver Bank. One of the tenders recalled working with two adult humpback whales during the exact moments of the eclipse, that appeared to have the time signatures of sleepers, but continued to move as if restless.

One of our crew members even reported weird behavior between schools of fish she saw while using scuba to go check the main ship’s mooring. She said that the schools of fish seemed to be colliding with each other, disorganized and frantic. While all this was going on, we were fascinated by the sight of the eclipse itself; moments after the moon began to overtake the sun, the heat seemed to raise dramatically and the light became scattered. Unfortunately, no one on board had any of the special viewing glasses with them to use for safely viewing the eclipse. One of our tender drivers recalled that back in grade school during an eclipse, a teacher had taught her to take a piece of paper and make a small slit in the center of it as a viewing window. This somehow is supposed to protect your eyes from the concentrated glare of the sun, so… Thank you, Mrs. Henshaw, for the life hack. 

Our other noteworthy encounters of the week included an eleven whale rowdy group that had a tendency to come close enough to our tenders to splash us with water as they came up to take a breath and dive back down to challenge their opponents.

A young female whale, alone, playing at the surface with the sargassum that floated by. A young mother and calf that settled nicely in front of our guests but didn’t interact, as the calf was still way too young.

In addition to those memorable encounters, we also came upon a pod of pantropical spotted dolphins that also had a few young of their own; calves just the size of footballs trying to keep up with their elders. Our very last encounter of the week came as a surprise as one of the tenders weaved its way through the coral heads towards the wreck for a final snorkel late in the day. Less then a hundred feet behind the wreck a fluke appears, chopping through the swells on the outside of the reef, lob tailing, as if to say goodbye.

Later, after some investigation, we found a positive ID for this whale. Tusk, first seen in 1979 and a well known whale in the Gulf of Maine, is often seen and easily identified on the feeding grounds by his unique fluke twisting behavior. Have a look at the link to follow to see Tusk in action. Facebook video of “Tusk” shared by Brier island Whale and Seabird Cruises

The 2024 season has been very successful with fourteen positively identified whales including; Noche, Clamp, Pallette, Anther, Soursop, Watchtower, Simooms, Mallard, Precipice, Spike, Angus, Legume, Perimeter and of course Tusk. On just one of our tenders we have recorded 122 encounters with mothers and calves and over 450 encounters with individuals! As the Turks & Caicos Explorer II pulls the mooring for the final time and leaves the Silver Bank behind, we are joined by yet another pod of dolphins riding the wake of the bow. A fantastic way to say goodbye to this watery haven and such an incredible season with our beloved North Atlantic humpback whales. The Aquatic Adventures crew wants to thank each one of you for being a part of our adventure and we hope you either read along or join us next year for the 2025 Silver Bank season! 

The Aquatic Adventures team hopes that you are as inspired as we are to help sustain the humpback whale population. Through our partnership with the Center for Coastal Studies, we are helping to gain critical information on these charismatic creatures, and to seek ways to protect and preserve them. To find out more about this effort, join their mailing list or to make a donation, large or small, please visit: www.coastalstudies.org/aquaticadventures

We are proud to support SeaLegacy in their efforts to create powerful media to change the narrative around our world’s oceans. Their mission is to inspire the global community to protect our oceans. To learn more about SeaLegacy and help with this important mission, please visit: https://www.sealegacy.org

Thanks to all who have generously donated!

Learn more about Aquatic Adventures here.

Written by: Aquatic Adventures team member Gillian Morin
Edited by: Aquatic Adventures team member Heather Reser 
Images: Aquatic Adventures, Jamie Colosimo and Heather Reser