Swimming with whales on the Great Barrier Reef

Diary note June 13, 2008: First contact … one of the most profound moments of my life. Approaching in silence through the bright blue sea, a dwarf minke whale stopped just 10 metres away and stared intently at me. What was it thinking and why does this particular species of baleen whale find humans so fascinating?

As a producer of healthy and sustainable lifestyle radio programs, in May 2008 I was chatting on-air with Mike Ball and Craig Stephen about swimming with the minke whales on the Great Barrier Reef. As Craig described in detail the close encounters with whales divers and snorkellers were experiencing each season, our conversation struck a deep chord within me. Exactly one month after interviewing Mike and Colin about the minkes, I found myself aboard a luxurious live-aboard catamaran, about to embark on the experience of a lifetime.

On the reef

On the first morning of my four-day trip I awoke to a calm, sunny day, anchored off the first dive site of Flare Point on the Southern Reef. Synchronicity had brought me to this point in my life. Professionally, I was on the trip to write a research article on the minkes. Personally, I was fulfilling a dream that had been seeded somewhere in the past. Somehow, while I wasn’t watching, life had watered and tended this quiet and rarely recognised dream into what unexpectedly promised to be an enchanting reality. I was about to swim with a whale.

In many countries it’s illegal to swim with whales and heavy penalties apply. This opportunity offered in the Great Barrier Reef for tourists to have an underwater encounter with the dwarf minke is governed by a stringent code of practice and there are only nine licences currently issued to six live-aboard vessels and three-day tripper boats operating out of Cairns. Licensees place very high value on their licenses and take great care to ensure the extensive list of criteria, obligations and conduct is strictly adhered to. Swimmers may swim with whales in Commonwealth waters only if the whales initiate the contact.

As our group gathered at the bow of the boat on that first morning, the crew reminded us of this and imparted the strict code of practice that we all had to abide by. These rules included entering the water as quietly as possible with no sudden movements or noises during swimming, never swimming towards a whale or making physical contact with it and using only natural light for photos. No one is ever allowed in the water if a cow and calf are present and we were warned that any breach of the code would result in the offender being immediately removed from the water and restricted from swimming for the remainder of the trip.

Whale sighting

Throughout time, whales have always held an extraordinary fascination for humans, and now for this particular sub-species of whale, humans seem to have become just as fascinating. This unusual curiosity that the dwarf minke display towards humans is offering the unparalleled opportunity of regular seasonal underwater close encounters for an increasing number of local and international tourists. For most of the divers and snorkellers who visit Ribbon Reef during the peak season of mid-June to mid-July each year, there is a strong likelihood of coming face to face with a whale. As for me, this was unquestionably a life-changing event.

Shortly after the divers had disappeared into the water at Flare Point, a cool wind blew up and, as the only non-diver on board, I stood looking at the dark-blue water with some sense of trepidation. I was suddenly reminded how much I disliked being in deep, cold water, so I pulled my windcheater around me and sat down next to Rachael Amies, the researcher I was to interview during the trip, to become better acquainted.

Within 15 minutes, Rachael sighted a whale just a few metres off the port bow. I jumped to my feet with a surge of excitement. As we watched the whale gently surface and submerge repeatedly around the boat, I thought, “Damn, I am still in my clothes! What if, despite the statistics, this is the only whale we see for the whole trip?”

I looked at Rachael, thinking to follow her lead. Was she going to rush into a wetsuit and hop in the water? She seemed very calm and in no hurry to face the cold wind. So I, too, let the moment pass in the belief that an even better opportunity would soon arise. And it did.

Encounter

After lunch, we moved on to a pinnacle dive site at Ribbon Reef number three. The wind had dropped and the water looked inviting, so I pulled on my wetsuit and considered snorkelling after the divers as their bubbles disappeared off in the direction of the pinnacle. I was lingering around the bow of the boat contemplating my solo snorkel when suddenly a crew member called “Whale!” A tow line was quietly cast out and the crewman looked at me as if to say, “Well, what are you waiting for? Get in the water!”

Even though I had not caught sight of a whale I took the crewman at his word and quietly slid into the water and pulled myself along the tow line out towards the yellow buoy. As I reached the end of the rope, I looked back at the crew member standing on the landing, waiting for his cue.

“There,” he said, pointing off to my right. I dipped my head below the surface and, breathing slowly, I waited in anticipation as my pulse picked up the pace by several beats. In the few moments that I hung there alone in the middle of open waters of unknown depth (I certainly did not want to know how deep it was!), I realised my heart was racing not only from anticipation, but from a quiet panic that was slowly growing inside me.

Until that point in my life, I’d had an absolute terror of swimming in deep, open water. This terror had been exacerbated several years earlier when, as a passenger, a wave dumped me off a yacht in the middle of Port Phillip Bay. I was left to tread water in my clothes for more than 20 minutes in shark-inhabited waters until a small powerboat came to rescue me.

So here I was, this time attached to a tow line, clinging on against the chop and floating in deep, open water with my heart starting to thump in my ears with panic. The thought crossed my mind to pull myself in and forget the whole thing … and then, suddenly, there was something approaching only a few metres away. I think my heart actually stopped momentarily as I came face to face with my first minke whale.

This seven-metre cetacean slowly emerged from the bright-blue expanse and then floated motionlessly as it looked me straight in the eye. For this brief 90-second encounter, I felt suspended in time as the whale and I seemed to be all that existed in this underwater world. My panic had been instantly replaced by awe, deep joy and a pervading sense of peace and gratitude. After briefly watching me bob along the surface, the minke effortlessly thrust up its tail and disappeared back into the blue.

Minkes revealed

First contact with this sub-species of southern minke Balaenoptera acutorostrata occurred in the late 1970s and the dwarf minke whales were eventually recognised as a distinct form by the mid 1980s. By this time, these small baleen whales were becoming regular visitors to dive sites in the Great Barrier Reef, where they appeared to be actively seeking out divers.

In 1996 Dr Alastair Birtles, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Management and Ecotourism at James Cook University (JCU) in North Queensland and his colleague Dr Peter Arnold (now deceased), began the dwarf minke research program known as the MWP (Minke Whale Project). The MWP is greatly assisted by the growing eco-tourism factor, which provides literally thousands of photos donated by scuba divers each year. In 2008 alone, more than 20,000 images were added to the identification catalogue being compiled and analysed by PhD student Susan Sobtzick at JCU. So far, more than 150 individual minke have been identified, many of them being sighted repeatedly over consecutive years. The project has now gathered many tens of thousands of underwater photos and several hours of video footage, making it the most extensively documented underwater research of whale behaviour and identification ever conducted in the world.

I was lingering around the bow of the boat contemplating my solo snorkel when suddenly a crew member called "Whale!" A tow line was quietly cast out and the crewman looked at me as if to say, "Well, what are you waiting for? Get in the water!"

Apart from the fact that the dwarf minke clearly find humans rather entertaining, official findings are yet to be confirmed as to why these whales return repeatedly each year to the well-known dive sites such as Cod Hole and Lighthouse Bommie in the Great Barrier Reef. It’s most likely the minke seek refuge in these protected waters for both mating and breeding.

An important part of the MWP research is to determine the effects of ecotourism on the minke population and the risks of issues such as habituation, which could lead the minke to becoming easier targets for whaling. Thankfully, there has been no clear sign of habituation to date, but issues such as propeller injuries from colliding boats and the risk of disease transfer from humans are very real concerns that are being addressed in the strict code of conduct for minke whale encounters.

Dwarf minke whales are the most highly patterned of all baleen whales and present with complex markings that can be used for individual identification, much like the human fingerprint. One individual juvenile whale has reached celebrity status with her own particular habit of pirouetting vertically in front of divers on regular occasions.

Pavlova, named after the famous Russian ballerina, was seen for three consecutive years from 2005 to 2007 and her repeated pirouetting appears to be her own distinctive behaviour signature, not noted in other minkes in the area. Pavlova, along with several other minke, has been known to approach swimmers to within less than a metre. Although, regrettably, I did not get to witness the antics of Pavlova during this trip, my next whale encounter lasted for nearly an hour.

Closer encounter

Our first day had included the very special and relatively rare experience of a minke cow and calf passing around the boat several times, which was a beautiful sight. The day concluded with a night dive at Clam Beds on Ribbon Reef number five and, you guessed it, I definitely did not get into the dark, deep, cold water that night! Life-changing epiphany or not, swimming at night was out of the question for me, although when the divers came back with reports of how great it all was, I respectfully nodded acknowledgement.

On Saturday morning we anchored at Lighthouse Bommie, the most famous of all dive sights for minke encounters, located at Ribbon Reef number ten. True to its reputation, it didn’t take long for a whale to appear shortly after we arrived at this pinnacle.

The water was much choppier than the day before, with little white caps whipping up in the strong sea breeze, but this time I was eager to get into the water. I was the first out on the line in a group of six and it was hard work to hold onto the buoy, yet there I stayed for nearly an hour as a lone minke kept circling in ever-decreasing passes around the snorkellers. Finally, the whale swam straight towards me to within five metres and just stayed there looking at me for two or three minutes.

I later heard (with a brief blush of envy) that further into the season there were many close encounters to within a metre. The minke seem to prefer approaching the more predictable line of snorkellers hanging from the surface rather than approach scuba divers, and towards the end of each season they become increasingly familiar, often approaching swimmers to within one to five metres.

Going home

Our last dive site was the world renowned Cod Hole and I decided to abandon my work to take this last opportunity to experience one of the best sites in the Great Barrier Reef. I recall that, as I idly snorkelled about this magnificent coral bed, the memories of meeting the minke merged with the experience and I again felt such a deep sense of gratitude, this time on behalf of the whole of humanity.

It’s now so crucial that we all find our own way to respect and protect this glorious planet, our home. Encountering the minke has deepened my already keen sense of respect and responsibility as a citizen of Planet Earth and highlighted the miracles of this wonderful world we are blessed to inhabit. What a wonderful world, indeed … please handle with care.