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In Deep With the Whales

Getting up close and personal with humpback whales off the coast of the Dominican Republic.

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By the time I've snapped out of my haze, I can see what happened: The fluke, or tail, of the spinning calf had swung through the water and passed close to where I had been drifting. I was so captivated by the gaze of the whale that I'd managed to forget about the fluke just 10 feet behind.

I lift my head out of the water to clear my snorkel and thank Nelson for the rescue, but he's still underwater beside me, treading quietly in place. He surfaces after a moment and taps my shoulder. "Put your head under, and hold your breath," he says. "You can hear a singer. He's far away, but you can hear it."

I can barely discern the whale song above the gurgling quiet beneath the surface. A faint, high-pitched, melodic moan, it falls, then rises again in a clear, lyrical arc. I wish the vocalist would come closer, remembering what Hoi said earlier about feeling the vibrations of a singing whale in close proximity: "If you're in the water with a singing animal, you can feel it everywhere, humming in every pocket of air in your body."

WHALE WATCHING IS A COMPARATIVELY RECENT DEVELOPMENT in what is otherwise a long and violent history between mankind and whales. The explosion of the American whaling industry happened in New England in the 19th century, primarily targeting sperm whales for the valuable spermaceti oil found in their large heads. Herman Melville's Moby Dick, published in 1851, didn't do these animals any favors in the public eye; Melville's whale was a relentless, vengeful beast inspired by an actual sperm whale who is believed to have deliberately sunk the Nantucket whaleship Essex.

Humpbacks, in particular, didn't suffer as severely when whaling became highly profitable, in part because they benefited from an unusual characteristic: Unlike most whales, humpbacks sink when they die, making it difficult for whalers to retrieve their bodies. However, with the arrival of modern whaling practices in the 20th century -- such as explosive harpoons and the ability to inflate a whale carcass with compressed air -- humpbacks became endangered, receiving official protection in 1963 after more than 200,000 had been slaughtered.

The relationship between man and whale evolved significantly between the era of Moby Dick and Hollywood's "Free Willy" in 1993. The "Save the Whales" environmental movement of the 1970s, characterized by the iconic image of Greenpeace protesters in inflatable boats confronting whaling ships, marked a profound shift in the cultural perception of whales. Bumper stickers, posters, T-shirts -- the public at large united in response to evidence of rapidly dwindling whale populations. The movement was ultimately successful, and a moratorium on commercial whaling was established by the International Whaling Commission in 1986.

Humpbacks, poster children of the "Save the Whales" movement, gradually began to attract the attention of the tourist industry, and activities such as land or boat-based whale watching and the more uncommon expeditions offering in-water encounters with the animals have become increasingly popular over the past 25 years. There are two places in the world where visitors are permitted to swim with humpback whales: the Kingdom of Tonga (in the South Pacific) and the Dominican Republic (less than four hours by air from Newark).

Swimming with whales is controversial, particularly among naturalists and marine biologists who believe that a human presence could disturb mating, feeding or nursing patterns. Several countries, including the United States and Mexico, have laws strictly prohibiting contact with whales beyond boat-based whale watching. But proponents of whale-swimming expeditions counter that the carefully monitored interaction with whales during "soft-in-water" encounters -- basically, passive snorkeling at the surface of the ocean -- doesn't pose a threat to the animals.

"I don't think that there's anything we can do -- I don't mean mankind as a whole, but just what we're doing here -- that disrupts them enough to make them not do what they're here to do," Tom argues. "It's obvious when a whale doesn't want to be around you, and when it doesn't want to be around you, there's nothing you can do to stay close to it."

AT THE HEIGHT OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC humpback whales' breeding and calving season, the quiet waters of the 200-square-mile Silver Bank sanctuary become "Club Med for humpbacks," as Tom likes to call it. Rowdy groups of males engage in particularly spectacular surface displays -- fin-slapping, breaching, high-speed races -- as they compete for the opportunity to mate. Roughly 5,000 to 7,000 humpbacks cycle through the sanctuary from December to mid-April, when the whales head north along the East Coast of the United States to feed in colder waters.

It's difficult to fully appreciate those numbers until witnessed firsthand. The morning we arrived, as a group of us stood on the sun deck admiring numerous spouts in the distance -- not to mention the mother and calf lolling at the surface just 50 feet to starboard -- it became clear that saying, "Hey, there's a whale!" around here is comparable to pointing out squirrels in Central Park.

Each sighting only raised our excitement, but before we could jump in, the crew took time to carefully review the various signals and safety procedures we'd need to follow in the water. Danger to the swimmers is another concern about encouraging close interaction between whales and humans; while there are clear precautions one can take to help ensure a safe encounter, being in the open ocean entails unpredictability. This was made clear by the liability release required for the trip, underscoring the risks involved -- including heart attack, panic attack, hyper-ventilation, animal attack or bite, plant or "chemical envenomization" -- in other words, the many ways that swimming in the ocean can kill you.