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Whale-watching
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Humpback whales
have used the Dominican Republic's SamanA? Bay and Silver Bank coral reef sanctuary as a
nursery and breeding ground
for untold millennia. They return each winter after spending nine months fanning out across the North Atlantic and by mid-January more than twelve thousand of them move around the waters of the country's northeast coast. They're at their liveliest in SamanA?'s tepid depths, as males track females, compete for attention and engage in courting displays, while mothers teach their calves basic survival skills.
Adult humpbacks grow to 15m long, weigh up to forty metric tons, and are black with distinctive white patches. Among the behaviours that you may see while whale-watching are breaching - hurtling the entire body above the surface before landing back down in a spectacular crash - and the trumpet blow - a tremendous, low blast that can be heard from several kilometres away. Humpbacks also engage in the whale songs , an eerie combination of moans and chirps formed into short phrases that are shuffled and put together in a basic form of communication. All of this is done to advance the serious business of mating and birthing . The female gestation period is a full year, so calves that are conceived in the bay one year are given birth here the next; there's a good chance you'll see at least one of the babies, which can weigh a ton and are light grey.
Whale-watching as a local tourist industry was begun in the 1980s by Kim Beddall, then an itinerant scuba instructor with no formal training as a marine biologist although she's since been instrumental in the implementation of a code of conduct for whale-watch boats. Beddall still runs excellent
whale tours
through her Whale SamanA?/Victoria Marine operation, MalecA?n (tel & fax 809/538-2494; US$38), and if you're here during the season, you won't find a more enthralling excursion. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Dominican Republic,
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