Well its all change here on the boat as we find ourselves
down on the silver banks just off the coast of the Dominican Republic (The DR).
Its whale watching season and the long and short of it is that we are now a
floating hotel. We leave the port of Pourta Plata each Friday night and make
the long transit out to a large coral platau off the coast called The Silver
Banks, which is where we tie up for the week. There we stay for five days of
whale watching and its not hard to spot them as there is anything from five to
seven thousand humpback whales here over the season!! This first week has been
an interesting one as I have once again found myself in the kitchen cooking. It
has been fun and yet again I just need to look up through the window and I am
blessed with a consistent flow of whales fighting for supremacy or mothers
looking after their new born. It is incredible to be out here amongst these
creatures. I did not get to get in the water with them this week but we are
here for eleven weeks now so there will be plenty of time. As I said before
there is also three weeks off to think about in-between too. When we arrived in
the DR last week I was taken back to when we arrived here in 2010 on the cruise
ship. It is an incredible country with rolling hills covered in growth. The
streets have almost a Cuban / South American vibe to them and the rules of the
road are similar to Thailand or India (crazy free for all). I look forward to
spending some time exploring but for now its turn the boat over and head back
to the banks!!
I wrote the previous entry a while ago and have not had
chance to post it. In other news I had the most incredible dive a few days
back. I entered the water, alone, with the task of checking the mooring to
ensure the bolts were tight and we would not float away at any moment, that
sort of thing. When I got underwater I could hear a whale singing, it was close
and it was making the most incredible bass sounds that shook my chest but the
visibility was terrible so there was no chance of me seeing them. I headed
towards the coral head the mooring was attached to and still the singing
continued so I just swam around above the coral head looking to see if there
was a whale nearby. As I glanced back over my shoulder a huge male humpback was
swimming straight past me, as my jaw dropped I kicked a little closer, he was
having non of it and with two effortless kicks of his tail he was out of sight.
What a blessing, very few people in the world have been in the water with
humpbacks and even less have been on SCUBA. I was grinning from ear to ear but
I still had one more task for the dive and that was to find some lost
sunglasses. I began search patterns near the back of the boat and was not
having much luck, I did however find an old dive compass which had been there
so long it had coral growing on it. A spotted moray eel came to check me out
and I found the most beautiful blue sea anemone. As I looked down to see how
much air I had I was shocked to see I had 10bar!! And I was still at 25 meters
(for those non divers that’s not a great deal of air and rather deep to have no
air). I calmly started my ascent and kept my eyes to the ground still in search
of the glasses. At about my halfway mark I looked down and saw what looked to
be sunglasses. I looked again at my air and it was now reading pretty much
zero. I decided….what the hell I’ll go for it and I swam back down and
collected what I saw. It was indeed a pair of glasses, not the ones I was
looking for but some a previous guest had lost almost a month ago. I wont bore
you with the details but I made it back onboard the boat and what an amazing
dive it was.
I am now on Vacation/holiday in a small town called Caberete
in the DR and needless to say it is EPIC. Surfing in the morning, kite surf the
afternoon and then the party kicks off on the beach around 10. All good so far
and I’ll try and post a little more now I have internet!!
