A DATE WITH SPERMS
Before you get so curious, let me enumerate their characteristics: they grow up to sixty feet, they have hundreds of teeth, and what I dated with were mostly females, as in female sperm whales.
Who said you cannot find whales in the Philippines? Now, nobody will doubt that our country indeed has a lot of those lumbering giants of the sea. They can be sighted as solitary citizens minding their own business, or in large herds or pods that may number up to two hundred individuals in one site! Yet, before 1993, it was a big question whether we really have whales in our waters. Thanks a lot to Lory Tan of Bookmark and the Silliman University guys, we found out that we now have more than 20 species of whales and dolphins in the Philippines. When we started spreading the word after a very successful expedition in late 1993, our enthusiasm was met with skepticism. Over the years and after so many symposia, photos, videos and success stories, whale watching is now an exciting standard fare in Philippine tourism.
At the start of the story, Lory invited the Department of Tourism to participate in the first ever whale and dolphin watching expedition alongside with the scientific foray of Silliman University in the person of Louella Dollar and Bill Perin of Scripps Institute in the U.S. It was an expensive undertaking with seven days of live-aboard expedition using a huge dive boat called the Aquastar. It was a beautiful boat that offered luxury in the middle of loneliness of the seas. One way to defray expenses was to invite as many paying volunteers as possible. The DOT sent three people: me, Rikka and Agnes. All avowed (by now) environmentalists and nature lovers. The first day was filled with anticipated excitement. Imagine, that was going to be the first in the Philippines – us, ordinary guys, will try to prove that there were whales and dolphins in the Philippines. Great! What we saw first were solitary dolphins. We got muted excitement. We were expecting (actually, praying for) more dolphins and huge whales. Within seven days, our efforts were well paid off. We saw about two hundred dolphins near Siquijor, all of them swimming with glee and jumping all around us. Many were spinning! I even saw a copulating (making love!) couple. They jumped out of the water while their bellies(?) were linked. Fun! I don’t know how many times I thanked God during those seven days.
Then there were those giants, the sperm whales that captured the imagination of many writers, environmental romanticists and Ahab. Our spotter from the island of Pamilacan in Bohol, saw a spout. He shouted that it was a whale. We scanned the still waters with binoculars. It took us some minutes before we saw it. The regular and rhythmic spouting coming from the whale’s blowhole. Our boat slowly got near the whale. Bill and Louella, our resident scientists, counted the blows. And just before we got really close to the whale, it dived down. I heard the exasperated sigh of everybody. Questions were raised. “Will it come out again?” “When?” “Where?” Luckily, there was an answer to every question. The spotter predicted a point where it will re-surface. Bill explained that the whale will have to re-surface to expunge all the carbon dioxide and take in oxygen before making another dive. “When?” “Oh, after about an hour.” So our ship positioned itself to the most probable spot where it will re-surface and we waited for about oh, an hour. Then it came out! At almost the exact site where the spotter predicted it would be. We got so near we could hear its breathing, the sound of the mist escaping its blowhole, and the gentle splashing of the water. Hushed! Everybody kept quiet. We were so afraid we might spook the giant (spook the giant! What an irony…) and it might immediately dive. Some of the divers with rock guts went into the water and tried to get near the whale. They heard clicking sounds. Bill told them later that the whale was scanning them. After some wonderful moments, the whale finally dived slowly with us watching its seemingly rolling back until its fluke (tail) showed its full glory above the water as if telling us guy that “Hey! The show’s over! I’m going on a deep, 1,000 meter dive now!” Well, we did not leave the area and looked for more sperm whales.
One year later
Powered by excitement over the possibility of selling whale watching for tourism in the Philippines, I brought some American tour agents on an ecotourism familiarization trip around the country. We used the same boat and impressed the Americans with what we can offer. I found out that one of the participants was into some esoteric thing. The sea off Bohol was quite rough and I was afraid that we might not see some marine mammals. Luckily, great crowds of dolphins showed up complete with spinning stunts. Then one by one, the giants surfaced. Exactly five of them! It was one of the highs in my career! Everybody shouted and excitement was all around the boat. One guy sat dazed and awed by what he saw. The esoteric one was so proud! She kept saying that she communicated with the whales and dolphins and asked them to show up. Well, maybe thanks to her; I got another great date with sperms.
By the way, the scientists think that many of the sperm whales found in Bohol were females. Maybe you have to participate in other expeditions to help confirm this?
Who said you cannot find whales in the Philippines? Now, nobody will doubt that our country indeed has a lot of those lumbering giants of the sea. They can be sighted as solitary citizens minding their own business, or in large herds or pods that may number up to two hundred individuals in one site! Yet, before 1993, it was a big question whether we really have whales in our waters. Thanks a lot to Lory Tan of Bookmark and the Silliman University guys, we found out that we now have more than 20 species of whales and dolphins in the Philippines. When we started spreading the word after a very successful expedition in late 1993, our enthusiasm was met with skepticism. Over the years and after so many symposia, photos, videos and success stories, whale watching is now an exciting standard fare in Philippine tourism.
At the start of the story, Lory invited the Department of Tourism to participate in the first ever whale and dolphin watching expedition alongside with the scientific foray of Silliman University in the person of Louella Dollar and Bill Perin of Scripps Institute in the U.S. It was an expensive undertaking with seven days of live-aboard expedition using a huge dive boat called the Aquastar. It was a beautiful boat that offered luxury in the middle of loneliness of the seas. One way to defray expenses was to invite as many paying volunteers as possible. The DOT sent three people: me, Rikka and Agnes. All avowed (by now) environmentalists and nature lovers. The first day was filled with anticipated excitement. Imagine, that was going to be the first in the Philippines – us, ordinary guys, will try to prove that there were whales and dolphins in the Philippines. Great! What we saw first were solitary dolphins. We got muted excitement. We were expecting (actually, praying for) more dolphins and huge whales. Within seven days, our efforts were well paid off. We saw about two hundred dolphins near Siquijor, all of them swimming with glee and jumping all around us. Many were spinning! I even saw a copulating (making love!) couple. They jumped out of the water while their bellies(?) were linked. Fun! I don’t know how many times I thanked God during those seven days.
Then there were those giants, the sperm whales that captured the imagination of many writers, environmental romanticists and Ahab. Our spotter from the island of Pamilacan in Bohol, saw a spout. He shouted that it was a whale. We scanned the still waters with binoculars. It took us some minutes before we saw it. The regular and rhythmic spouting coming from the whale’s blowhole. Our boat slowly got near the whale. Bill and Louella, our resident scientists, counted the blows. And just before we got really close to the whale, it dived down. I heard the exasperated sigh of everybody. Questions were raised. “Will it come out again?” “When?” “Where?” Luckily, there was an answer to every question. The spotter predicted a point where it will re-surface. Bill explained that the whale will have to re-surface to expunge all the carbon dioxide and take in oxygen before making another dive. “When?” “Oh, after about an hour.” So our ship positioned itself to the most probable spot where it will re-surface and we waited for about oh, an hour. Then it came out! At almost the exact site where the spotter predicted it would be. We got so near we could hear its breathing, the sound of the mist escaping its blowhole, and the gentle splashing of the water. Hushed! Everybody kept quiet. We were so afraid we might spook the giant (spook the giant! What an irony…) and it might immediately dive. Some of the divers with rock guts went into the water and tried to get near the whale. They heard clicking sounds. Bill told them later that the whale was scanning them. After some wonderful moments, the whale finally dived slowly with us watching its seemingly rolling back until its fluke (tail) showed its full glory above the water as if telling us guy that “Hey! The show’s over! I’m going on a deep, 1,000 meter dive now!” Well, we did not leave the area and looked for more sperm whales.
One year later
Powered by excitement over the possibility of selling whale watching for tourism in the Philippines, I brought some American tour agents on an ecotourism familiarization trip around the country. We used the same boat and impressed the Americans with what we can offer. I found out that one of the participants was into some esoteric thing. The sea off Bohol was quite rough and I was afraid that we might not see some marine mammals. Luckily, great crowds of dolphins showed up complete with spinning stunts. Then one by one, the giants surfaced. Exactly five of them! It was one of the highs in my career! Everybody shouted and excitement was all around the boat. One guy sat dazed and awed by what he saw. The esoteric one was so proud! She kept saying that she communicated with the whales and dolphins and asked them to show up. Well, maybe thanks to her; I got another great date with sperms.
By the way, the scientists think that many of the sperm whales found in Bohol were females. Maybe you have to participate in other expeditions to help confirm this?
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11:51 PM
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