The ocean is big.
Amazingly, I hadn’t really felt it before. On reef dives, land is nearby, and with reasonable visibility, you can see the bottom, or at least the vertical face of the reef. Here, there was only blue - left, right, front, back, down, even the sky above. My entire field of vision, my entire existence at the moment was blue - interrupted only by an 11 metre juvenile sperm whale chewing on my fins.
It had taken fourteen months of planning to get to this place and situation. On my previous visits, I had met and become friends with Takahashisan, the owner and captain of “Dancing Whale”, the 16-metre boat he uses to take visitors on dolphin and whale watching trips.
...and they lie adjacent to deep ocean trenches, thousands of metres deep. Like similar locations around the world, the Ogasawara islands have dozens, if not hundreds of endemic species that have evolved over thousands of years. |
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The primary attraction for me, however, was underwater. The islands are a haven for marine life. Upwelling from deep ocean trenches attracts schools of fish that congregate to capitalise on the oasis of food. Pelagics like mantas, sailfish, mola molas, green turtles and leatherbacks are frequent visitors to Bonin waters. Large predators abound - hammerheads and tiger sharks are common - and local fishing lore is replete with tales...
It had only been a few years since Takahashi-san first noticed a pattern in sperm whale activity though. He had found a particular spot where females and their calves appeared to congregate for several weeks each year, usually commencing in late July.
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Over several years, he had consistently found the whales, and on occasion, had been fortunate enough to have some approach the “Dancing Whale” for a quick look.
Captain Takahashi’s stories captured my imagination. Few people had ventured out to the area he described, as it was quite far from the island where most people lived. In fact, a mystique surrounded the sperm whales. Local fishermen spoke of attacks by aggressive sperm whales, the largest of the toothed whales. Large, intimidating sperm whale teeth were on display around the islands, leftover from the days of large-scale whaling. No one on the islands really wanted to get near the whales, much less in the water with them.
Except me.
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... as the sonar picked up again, and I looked down to see the whale take my left fin into the side of its mouth...
My fin left the whale’s mouth, and I floated away. I finned slowly to open the distance between us, but again, the current worked against me. The whale approached. Once again, I found myself in the
same, awkward position. I pushed away again a few more times with the same result - me straddling the whale, the whale chewing my fin. As my heart rate settled down to a calm 250 beats per minute...
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