Saturday, March 28, 2015

How Great is This

Hi All,
Another fabulous sunny day in Turks, we are heading out of Leeward with a couple from Ocean Club that would like to meet JoJo. We turn down Grace Bay and I tell them the usual "don't get your hopes up we might not find him".
HERE'S JOJO, he comes swimming up to our boat and right down the center.  He wants a ride to Pine Cay. Off we go with numerous tour boats coming by with their passengers cheering wildly every time he surfaces. JoJo just wanted a ride so he could have breakfast at his favorite fishing spot. After breakfast he wants to go back to Grace Bay and he hails his favorite taxi, Spy Hop to take him there! Now for the best part, we get to Beaches where the water's so amazingly clear and I get to spend some quality time with my buddy. We swim through the finger coral, JoJo taking the opportunity to scratch; we play bang the buoy; we check out a downed wind surfer. If this wasn't enough activity JoJo goes over to the Beaches dive boat and performs a few ariel leaps in their wake.
Now, its time to head back to Pine Cay and off we go. As we head down the coast of Pine Cay, I see two lovely Tropic Birds with their long white tails gliding high above us. These pelagic birds are here to nest in the cliffs and have their babies before heading back to sea for the rest of the year.
JoJo has now gone off and we are traveling back toward Leeward when I see a huge splash out beyond the reef. I keep watching to see if maybe it is just a wave hitting the reef but I don't see any more splashes. The whales have pretty much gone by so what am I seeing? I decide to mention this sighting and we go out to investigate. We head out past the reef and drop our hydrophone in the water. We don't hear a thing. We head back and I'm wondering what could have made that big splash, when I see a spout!! We motor over to where we think the spout came from and again drop the hydrophone in the water. This time as soon as it submerges, we start hearing all sorts of high pitched squeaks, low groans, barks and other unearthly noises. We see more spouts this time. It appears there may be three whales from all the spouts. John gets in and swims over toward them. A mother and calf come right by him. He gets back on the boat elated to have a great whale encounter. As we start to leave them, we see the escort going along the reef to catch up to the mother and calf. It pays to keep your eyes on the water!!
Now our guests maybe a bit crisped but are over the top at having so many adventures in one outing! As we again start back toward Leeward who do we see but JoJo coming along in the other direction. I get in and he's slowly traveling in circles along the bottom. He then regurgitates some fish remains and heads off toward Pine Cay! This behavior doesn't call for alarm, I have seen it many times!

1 comment:

  1. First of all a HUGH thank you to Captain John and Jay for a most memorable day yesterday. I heard the most beautiful words ever yesterday: "Here's JoJo", I actually cried. I have always dreamed of getting up close and personal with JoJo, and yesterday became a day beyond my wildest dreams. Not only did my husband and I get to look into that gorgeous JoJo face for FIVE hours as JoJo hitched a ride for a long time yesterday and he was right there behind the boat and every time he did his beautiful surface arch to take a breath we looked right into his face, BUT, I had the awesome privilege to actually get into the water with JoJo. When we were in Grace Bay with him, Jay got into the water with him, Captain John soon thereafter gave me the signal that I could pop into the water. JoJo was under the boat, it was so wonderful, what a gorgeous creature. He checked me out and circled the boat a bit and I guess that I was acceptable, because he and Jay sauntered off with me in tow. I could only keep up for a bit, but, it had to be the best 15 mins of my life!
    And just when one would think it couldn't get any better! Add THREE whales to the equation! We had the privilege to watch these awesome creatures tail flap and to watch their gorgeous smooth arching as they would take their breath. Captain John timed the distance between breaths and it was about 17 mins. John got into the water with the whales and the mother whale and her calf swam right by him.
    One of the very coolest things was the experience of actually seeing the whales and hearing their, as Jay referred to, "out of this world" sounds that they make. Jay and John dropped their hydro phone into the water. We got to actually see the whales and hear them at the same time, "real time!" LOVED it!
    We are so blessed most people in the whole world do not experience what we did yesterday. We also saw big turtles and flying fish.
    Thank you again "guys" and thank God for zinc oxide! Bunny (and Jim)

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