Humpbacks on the Silver Bank

Howard Hall

   The sun rose behind a dark cloud and greeted the Silver Bank with indifferent gray light. Bob Cranston, Michele Hall, and I loaded our sixteen foot Seal Team Avon with gear. Tom Conlin, captain of the Coral Star, offered to take us out to find the whales this morning. His first priority was to accommodate the Coral Star's regular passengers. But after we had experienced five relatively unproductive days, he decided we deserved a break. Tom has a talent for getting close to whales.

Filming Humpbacks – ©Michele Hall

I enjoy a reputation for getting lucky at capturing images underwater. But consistently good luck is essentially the product of opportunity and preparedness. I've always done as much as possible to increase my luck by maximizing both. Since we had come to the Dominican Republic to film humpback whales for a sequence in a National Geographic Television Special, I needed all the luck I could get.

  We had purchased the Seal Team Avon at a military auction and shipped it to the Coral Star so that we could work independently from the Coral Star's regular schedule. We further increased our preparedness by loading the boat in the most optimistic fashion. Both Bob and I had 16mm movie cameras with full film loads. We also put aboard an Igloo cooler with one additional 16mm film magazine. Then, just in case we miraculously managed to shoot all 30 minutes of movie film, we loaded our still cameras on board plus extra still film.

  The best way to photograph humpbacks with still cameras is unquestionably to free dive. But it's extremely difficult to shoot motion picture film free diving. I can't hold my breath long enough to swim down, get in position, get focused, set exposure, then shoot a well composed thirty second scene without turning lavender. And it's not possible to hold the camera perfectly still when breathing through a snorkel on the surface unless the surface is absolutely dead calm. So Bob and I included a pair of fifteen cubic foot pony bottles with our diving gear. And just in case we got really lucky, we also put aboard two eighty cubic foot aluminum tanks. I couldn't imagine how we might use the big tanks, but I wanted to be prepared for that unknown factor. Despite having only glimpsed passing whales underwater during the last five days, we had the Avon loaded as if we expected to dive with them all day.

  When the Avon was ready, Tom Conlin came aboard and we prepared to cast off. As he did, my assistant cameraman, Mark Conlin (no relation to Tom) stuck his head out a hatch and asked if there was anything he could do. Mark looked like he had drowned and been submerged in ice water for a week. His skin was bluish gray and he had dark circles under his eyes. The victim of a nasty flu bug, he probably looked better than he felt.

  "For God's sake, go back to bed." I said. "We'll let you know if we need some help from the living dead". This was Mark's first opportunity to dive with humpbacks and he hated to miss a day. But his physiology was not cooperating and he reluctantly disappeared through the hatch not to be seen again for the rest of the day.

  Tom guided the Avon away from the Coral Star and directly into the gray dawn. After we had gone about two miles, the sun broke through the clouds bathing the Silver Bank in golden light. The water turned iridescent blue and looking over the side I could see emerald shades of blue-green where the reef was separated by patches of sand nearly one hundred feet below. I had just realized that conditions were nearly perfect when a pair of whales surfaced one hundred yards away.

  Tom's approach to putting divers in the water with whales is very passive. If the whales are disturbed by the divers or the boat, they swim away and nobody gets a good look. So Tom positions the boat fifty yards or so up wind and kills the motor. Then he puts his divers in the water (often without fins) and tells them to stay close to the boat and to stay as motionless as possible. Then one of two things often happens. Either the boat drifts over whales that are sleeping or inactive below the surface or, sometimes, the whales get curious and swim close to the boat and divers for a look. These "friendly" encounters sometimes last ten or fifteen minutes.

  At 8:30 am, Bob and I slipped into the water as quietly as possible. Michele and Tom passed us our cameras and we laid on the surface waiting to drift within sight of the whales. A few moments later, I saw the ivory white pectoral fin of a whale pass deep beneath us. It seemed to be turning in our direction so I took a deep breath through my snorkel and dived down. When I reached forty feet, I put my regulator in my mouth and took another half breath. I could still see the white color of the pectoral fin in the distance, but I had misjudged its direction of travel. I was not in position. I exhaled the air in my lungs and slowly swam to the surface. The dive had been a mistake and now my exhaust bubbles would probably end the encounter. I surfaced near Bob and raised my head to say "oops". Before I could get the word out, however, a whale surfaced directly behind Bob and blew a huge geyser of spray into the air. I immediately put my regulator back in and dove down fifteen feet to take a shot.

  The whale slowly circled about thirty feet away and I got the first really good thirty second take of the trip. When I turned the camera off and looked up from the viewfinder, I realized there was another whale directly below the one I was filming. It was surfacing right beneath me! I took another breath and swam down.

  At thirty feet, I stopped and composed my next shot. A whale was passing only twenty feet away. As I panned with the camera, Bob entered the frame. He was closer to the whale than I and as it passed him, the whale raised its fifteen foot pectoral fin gently over his head. Bob was even more excited than I (if that was possible). Part of his assignment was to get me in the frame with the whale when ever possible. But now he was faced with irresistible opportunities and with whales filling his viewfinder and adrenaline filling his bloodstream, he quickly forgot about me.

  I had shot more than half my film magazine when I felt the inevitable resistance in my regulator. Bob and I drained our pony bottles within moments of each other. When I looked up, the Avon was only a few yards away so I swam over and passed the empty tank to Michele. When I put my head back down, I couldn't believe that the whales were still there! Unbelievable! I hyperventilated as much as my pounding heart would allow and dived. Then I dived again and then again. Twenty minutes later, I had finished my magazine. Still the whales circled the boat!

  I swam back to the Avon, passed my camera to Tom and climbed aboard. Tom was hooting like a howler monkey. "This is as good as it gets, guys," he kept repeating. "This is as good as it gets".

  I dried my shaking hands and toweled off my head to keep water from dripping into the camera housing. Then I opened the housing and changed out the magazine with the spare I had brought in the Igloo. "Thank God I brought the spare," I kept thinking. My hands went through the motions at warp speed which, naturally, caused the process to take twice as long as normal. After sealing up the housing and slating the camera, I called Bob over to the Avon. "Let's try it on the bottom," I said when he reached the boat. "Do you have any film left?" Bob launched himself into the boat like an elephant seal and looked through the port of his housing. "I’ve got 200 feet," he said. We started strapping on our Scubapro stab-jackets and the eighty cubic foot tanks.

  Putting on the large tanks was a gamble. Chances are that the whales would be gone by the time we returned to the water. If they were still around, there was some chance the SCUBA bubbles would drive them away. But they hadn't been bothered by the bubbles from the pony bottles, so I decided it was worth the risk. We had fifteen minutes of film already exposed. But humpbacks swimming near the surface was nothing new. I wanted something special. I wanted scenes of whales swimming over coral reefs. But the reef was ninety feet below the boat. I told Michele to put on her snorkeling gear and mark our location for Tom. Then Bob and I crawled over the side of the Avon as quietly as possible. Amazingly, the whales were there! Bob and I dived straight for the bottom.

  At ninety feet I hit the sand between two large coral heads. I looked up and saw two whales diving straight for the bottom. I couldn't believe it. They were following us down! I turned the camera on, pointed it at the coral and swam up over the reef. As the camera emerged from behind the gorgonian corals it revealed a forty foot whale on the other side. Beautiful! Then from the top of the coral head, I turned and filmed Bob as he photographed two whales passing near the base of the reef. Now there were three whales!

A Tonga Humpback – ©Michele Hall

The three whales ascended to breathe and then dived down to Bob and me again. They passed in formation as our cameras rolled, then disappeared on the other side of the reef. In a moment they were gone. I asked Bob how much film he had left and he indicated that he was out. I had 200 feet left. I'd captured a great scene of Bob filming the whales and I decided to get some cutaways of Bob to match it. I moved in close and indicated for Bob to raise his camera as if filming. I looked through the viewfinder and started shooting. Bob raised his camera, looked through it, then pointed. I shut my camera off, shook my head, and indicated for him not to point. I just wanted him to pretend to be shooting. He had a strange look on his face and he continued to point. I shook my head again. But his pointing just became more enthusiastic.

  Suddenly, I got that strange feeling in the hairs on the back of my neck. Perhaps it was the strange look in Bob's eyes or perhaps it was the subtle movement of water around me. But I suddenly knew Bob was not pretending for the camera. I slowly turned around. Six feet away was the enormous face of a motionless humpback whale. Its huge eye was looking over my shoulder watching me asking Bob to pretend to film whales! I almost leaped out of my wet suit. Then my camera was running again.

  Fifteen minutes later I was out of film. I looked up toward the surface for the boat and what I saw took my breath away. Two more whales had shown up. Now there were at least five and they were becoming surface active. Silhouetted against the morning sun I could see the little Avon, three or four enormous whales swimming rapidly around in a circle, and in the middle of the melee a tiny human figure - Michele blissfully taking still photographs. I knew from experience that the middle of a group of surface active whales was no place to be. From ninety feet below, it looked like she might be crushed at any moment.

  Fortunately, by the time Bob and I surfaced, Michele had made her way safely back to the Avon. Bob and I passed our empty cameras to Tom and pulled ourselves aboard. Tom had quit saying that this was as good as it gets. Now he was saying. "I've never seen anything like this, guys. I've never seen anything like this ever!"
And still the whales did not leave.

  We needed more movie film, so we marked the spot visually as best we could and headed back to the Coral Star. Ten minutes later Bob and I were aboard and in our state rooms loading film into my magazines. Twenty minutes later, and with fresh magazines loaded, we came back outside to an empty deck. The Coral Star seemed abandoned. In the distance I heard shouts and excited voices. When I looked over the side I saw why. The whales had followed us back to the Coral Star! Just off the stern, the entire compliment of passengers and many of the crew were swimming with whales.

  I carried my camera to the stern and lowered it over the side on a rope. Then I put my regulator and stab-jacket on a fresh tank and jumped in. As I swam toward a large coral head just astern of the Coral Star, I saw Bob's wife Cathy, her arms out stretched like a bird in flight, swimming in tandem with a large humpback whale. On the surface, I could see Marty Snyderman shooting still photos and a dozen more bodies near the silhouette of another whale. Wow! I raised the camera and pressed the trigger. Nothing! What's this? I pressed it again. Still nothing!! Again. Nothing!!! AAAGGGHHH!! I pounded on the camera with my fist hard enough to break the skin then shook it as forcefully as I could. Then I said a quick prayer and pressed the trigger once more. AAAAAGGGGHHHH!!! Dead. NO!!!! Reluctantly, I turned my back on the spectacular scene ahead and swam back to the Coral Star reciting a litany of curses that would make Rodney Dangerfield blush.

  I tied the camera off the to the stern and climbed aboard. As quickly as possible, I stripped off my gear and dried off my body. Then I pulled up the camera and dashed for my state room and tool box.

  Back in my room, I opened the camera housing and replaced the battery. Still nothing. I replaced the fuse. Nothing. I replaced the battery cable. Nothing still. I screamed at it and cursed its maker. No response. The camera was dead. But I had a spare camera. It meant disassembling the entire housing, but I could replace the camera. It would take a half hour. Actually it took forty minutes because I was in a hurry.

  When I returned to the deck with the camera repaired and loaded, I expected to find passengers toweling off and enthusiastically telling lies about their experience with the whales. But I was wrong. Amazingly, the whales were still there! I couldn't believe it. I lowered the camera over the side, donned my gear and dived in.

  I don't know what time the sun set, but I was still in the water. For the last two hours I had been shooting stills having long finished the movie film in my magazines. And for the last two hours I had been bone cold. Even with a water temperature of 82 degrees, a full wet suit, and all the physical activity, I was shaking like a bicyclist riding down a steep flight of stairs. When sunset finally ended the day, and the whales had finally moved off to find other entertainment, I crawled aboard the Avon in really terrible condition. I didn't know if I was just exhausted or hypothermic. But I couldn't stop shaking. When I finally got back to the Coral Star, I climbed into my bunk, covered myself with blankets, and shook for the rest of the night.

  The next morning I couldn't get out of bed. It turned out that I was neither exhausted nor hypothermic. The same bugs that had made Mark Conlin miss the best dive of the year, were now having a bit of fun with me. And that was wonderful luck! That I came down sick only after this wonderful day had ended was, perhaps, the luckiest event of all.