Hi SD fans, and welcome back to the channel. We’ve talked about the attraction of the
bigger marine life in a past video, and marine life doesn’t come any bigger than marine
mammals. The other thing which makes diving with marine mammals so intriguing is the fact
that these intelligent animals will interact with you, often in most-unexpected ways. Here
at Scuba Diver, we love our marine mammal encounters, so in this video, I am going to
be looking at some of the most-magnificent marine mammals on the planet.
I love seeing all marine life, but I particularly like being in the water with the bigger stuff.
Where that big stuff is a marine mammal, you can bet on having a memorable encounter – many
times I have often felt like the mammals in question are viewing me as the curiosity,
not the other way around. Take dolphins, for instance. I have been lucky
enough to dive with dolphins all over the world, but my best encounters have been in
the Egyptian Red Sea and in the Bahamas. In the Red Sea, there are a couple of reefs that
are known as dolphin hangouts, and here you can snorkel with large family groups of spinner
dolphins, from small juveniles to full-grown adults. It is simply amazing. The first time
I did it, the reef in question – Sha’ab Samadai in the south of Egypt – was only
visited by liveaboards, and so we were the only boat there. Our boatman took our RIB
carefully into the lagoon of the semi-circular reef and we watched as the dolphins swam in
steady circles around the outer edge. Carefully, we slid in the water and made our way to the
edge of the reef, to await the arrival of the dolphins. Floating with our heads poking
out of the water, as soon as we saw dorsal fins in close proximity, we duck-dived down
to meet them. What an incredible experience. That first dive down, I reached 5m and then
went upright to be greeted by the sight of more than 200 dolphins barrelling towards
me. I could physically feel their sonar in my chest, and they zoomed around me on all
sides as I floated back to the surface. Once the dolphins had passed, the RIB picked us
up, transported us to the other side of the lagoon and we repeated the process. We kept
up this same routine for hours until we were so tired we could barely climb back into the
RIB! But who would want to get out of the water when you had a dinky dolphin about this
big come up and look you in the eye, before its protective mother put a fin over its back
and led it away, almost as if to say ‘don’t go near that, it’s a human, you don’t
know where it has been’… In the Bahamas, I was on a wreck dive off
Grand Bahama and I’d dropped down to the sandy seabed to look into a hole in the hull.
As I was floating there, peering into the gloom, I felt a presence next to me, and assumed
it was my buddy coming in for a look. I moved over to give him room and glanced over – my
reg nearly dropped out of my mouth, as I had an adult male bottlenose dolphin tucked right
next to me. As he realised I was looking at him, he gave a jerk of his head, as much to
say ‘so, what are we looking at?’ He then took off into the blue, leaving me
to turn right round and see my buddy a couple of metres away, his eyes nearly popping out
of his head. He later told me that the dolphin had cruised past him and then had patiently
been waiting just behind me until I moved out of its way!
Dugongs might not be quite as charismatic as a dolphin, but they are undeniably cute
in their own way. They are one of the rarest sea-going mammals in the world, yet in the
south of Egypt, there are a couple of unassuming bays which offer you a much better-than-average
chance of encountering one of these gentle giants. Sometimes called a ‘sea cow’,
these behemoths can reach lengths in excess of three metres and weigh more than 500kg,
yet they are very docile, and you can carefully approach them quite closely for some superb
photo opportunities. The area around Abu Dabbab, near Marsa Alam,
is a hotspot for dugong activity, possibly thanks to the prolific seagrass growth smothering
the bottom of the bays - a dugong’s favourite food. Many dive centres run special dugong
shore-diving day trips to the region, such is the appeal of these creatures. Seeing them
hoover their way across the seabed like an underwater vacuum cleaner is a fantastic experience,
and it is even more hilarious when they decide they need a breath and surface through the
hordes of snorkellers usually floating overhead. Watching flailing snorkellers trying to get
out of the way of a large grey behemoth rising towards them is priceless.
A close cousin of the dugong, the manatee is a similarly endearing. In Florida, there
are various locations you can head out and snorkel with these gentle creatures, most
famously Crystal River, but thankfully, here strict rules prohibit close encounters and
there are hefty fines if you touch or harass a manatee. That said, I have seen a poor snorkeller
trying to extricate themselves from the attentions of a juvenile manatee, who persistently rammed
itself under her arm and used its front flippers to try and pull her hand towards it for a
belly rub. You can do your level best to avoid contact with marine life, but it becomes extremely
awkward when the marine life in question isn’t following the same rules as you!
Undeniably cute are seals. The Farne Islands are a rugged group of islands just off the
Northumberland coastline in the UK and they are home to one of the largest grey seal colonies
in the world. With around 1,000 seal pups being born each autumn, there are plenty of
inquisitive young seals that are happy to approach and interact with the divers and
photographers that flock here to visit. The diving here is excellent, but the highlight
is to get intimately close to these wonderful, playful creatures. You can dive along rocky
inlets, covered in colourful corals, and then suddenly find yourself with four or five of
these endearing animals, playing and chasing each other, or they may be snoozing while
wedged between two rocks. Stay shallow, among the kelp or on a sandy seabed, and they might
even come right up to you, tugging on your fins, or even putting their mouths around
your camera. The best way to see them is not to seek them out or try to follow them. Play
it cool. They will come to you, and once they do they will stay with you, giving you one
of the most-privileged wildlife encounters the UK has to offer.
Remember I said seals were cute. Well let me rephrase that – most seals are cute.
Leopard seals are a totally different proposition, a fierce predator so named because of their
spotted coats and large jaws. They look totally different to other seals, with large, almost-reptilian
heads and big, streamlined bodies that are capable of travelling at over 25mph when in
full hunting mode. They can weigh up to 450kg and measure over four metres long. They eat
fish, penguins and even other seals. Yet despite being at the top of their game when it comes
to hunting prey, they are also very inquisitive and will approach divers quite closely to
check them out, which can make for some extremely exciting encounters. Bulked up with drysuits
and other cold-water equipment, divers in Antarctic waters will be dazzled by the acrobatic
movements of this sleek killer, which has the unnerving habit of gaping its toothy jaws
up close and personal.
But if you want to go big, you can’t get much bigger than whales. Each May, a migration
of behemoths begins in the seas of Antarctica. After nearly six months of gorging on krill
in the cold waters, the region’s humpback whales begin annual journeys northward. Some
2,000 of them swim to idyllic Tonga in the South Pacific, a trek of nearly 5,000km, where
they will spend from July through October mating, giving birth, singing and socialising.
In this season, the whales can be found virtually anywhere in the archipelago’s warm, clear
lagoons, but especially around the Ha’apai island group. Visitors have perhaps the best
opportunity of any place on the planet for near-constant sightings of these majestic,
huge creatures - adults reach 15 metres in length and weigh some 35,000kg. And, for snorkellers
and freedivers, incredible and practically indescribable in-water encounters can be virtually
a daily occurrence. The whales, especially mothers being tolerant of their calves’
inherent curiosity when meeting humans in the water, can be surprisingly calm and accepting
of close, extended interactions.
If you can get the special permissions required, between November and March you can freedive
with sperm whales off the coast of Dominica in the Caribbean. These massive mammals, the
largest of the toothed whales, form a resident pod in the area, and simply being in the water
alongside these leviathans is next-level exciting. As an added bonus, as well as the sperm whales,
you can also encounter false killer whales, pilot whales and various species of dolphin.
Once you have had a few days diving with the whales, you can relax and head out on a whale-watching
trip to see them topside – and enjoy a rum cocktail or two on the way back into shore
at the end of the day.
You’ll have to break out your drysuit for our final marine mammal dive, but who wouldn’t
relish the opportunity to be in the water with killer whales? In the frigid waters off
Norway, you can freedive and snorkel with orca as family groups hunt for herring. These
gigantic marine mammals have a ferocious reputation, but while attacks on humans by orcas in captivity
is well documented, in the wild, there is little evidence of their harming people. Still,
even knowing this nugget of information, when you are face-to-face with that unmistakable
white-and-black face underwater, it is a thrill like no other. That shiver you feel down your
spine might not just be from the cold…
What is your favourite marine mammal? What marine mammal dives have proved particularly
memorable for you? Leave your comments below, and if you have a question, fire away – if
we can’t answer, maybe someone in our community will be able to. Remember, if you enjoyed
this video, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel, and check out our ever-growing playlist
for more educational and inspirational videos. As always, stay safe – and if you are going
diving, enjoy!