What’s the best underwater adventure our there? Diving with whales! Or, to be more accurate, snorkeling with whales. Mask, fins, and snorkels beat SCUBA any day, hands down, for close up encounters with Humpback Whales, all 45 feet of them!

Each year, more than a thousand whales converge on the Silver Bank to calve and to breed. Captain Tom Conlin has pioneered a system called “soft in-water encounters” which allow guests to observe and interact with the Humpbacks. It is non-stop adventure, and Captain Tom is now starting his 14th year exploring the waters of the Silver Bank, located about half way between the Dominican Replublic and the Turks and Caicos.

The North Atlantic humpback whale spends spring, summer and autumn in the high latitude feeding areas of the Gulf of Maine, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland/Labrador, Greenland and Iceland. As winter approaches they migrate southward to the mating and calving grounds of the Antilles.

The behavior patterns of the humpback whale in the northern latitudes typically defines a gentle giant, fattened from foraging and opportunistically gathering enough prey to sustain its winter migration period without lack of sustenance. During their winter gathering in the Antilles the females typically remain gentle and flirtatious, but the males become vocal, extremely surface active, aggressive, brutal and competitively enlivened.

The entire mating and calving season boils down to male humpbacks securing their position next to a female and protecting that position from any challenging whale or whales in the area. If a challenger moves into the area, the escort will display surface postures to warn off all competitors. If this is unsuccessful, a rowdy group or competitive group will form where they will utilize their pectoral fins and swat at each approaching whale, ram into each other or breach on top of each other all to get positioned next to the female. This can become staggering when you witness six or more challengers after a female being protected by one valiant escort.

How good is this trip? Given Tom’s incredible experience, he’ll soon have you “talking the talk” of whales. “Spy-Hopping, Fin Slapping, Lob Tailing, and the like. Plus Tom will illustrate all of the behaviors with slide shows. (He’s also a very well known professional photographer specializing in, you guessed it, big marine mammals. For additional information on Humpback Whales and these exciting cruises, visit Tom Conlin’s web site at www.aquaticadventures.com