Swimming in Danger Part 4 of 4: You’re gonna need a bigger boat.
[Today's article is final part of a four-part guest blog by pez_minotaur, and provides a chronicle of his adventures in the Galapagos islands with his wife, Ravynne. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.]
Once again we come back to Day 2, snorkelling at North Seymour Island. You may remember it from Part two where there was the sea lion encounter. These events happened just before that. The plan was for everyone to leave in the two smaller boats, get dropped off and have the currents take us back to the main boat. I was in the lead boat, and spent the ride getting my mask and fins ready. As a result we got to the drop point, and I flipped over the side into the water. While sitting in the water waiting for Ravynne to get her stuff ready the current carried me away from my boat and towards the second boat. When I was about halfway between the two our guide, who was on the second boat, started yelling and pointing. I looked where he was pointing just in time to see a whale’s tale dip below the surface. Excited at the chance to see a whale, I yelled to my boat and just said “WHALE” and pointed. When I turned to look to make sure I was pointing in the right direction when the whale jumped out of the water. Once I could see it I recognized it’s distinct black and what pattern. It was a Killer Whale. I tried diving underwater to see what they look like below the surface, but the water was too murky to see it at that distance. So I did what I believe anyone would have done. I started swimming as hard as I could towards it to get a closer look. This produced some disbelief from the other members of my boat, specifically in the form of a cry from one of the women “What the hell is he doing swimming at the whale?”. The women wasn’t Ravynne, she is used to my antics by now. I did manage to get a closer look at the whale on the surface, but it was too far away moving too fast for me to get close enough to see it under water. However the people who stayed behind in my boat got a pretty close look as it dove under the boat, but only I got to say I swam with Killer Whales in the wild.
Biology Interlude: I realize that I was more likely to be attacked by the sharks than the whales, but since the whales are predators of sharks I think they deserve top spot on the danger scale. Also if the whale had decided to eat me, I’m pretty sure it would have succeeded. The shark wasn’t that big and I might have been able to get away if it felt like eating me.
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And this, Pez, is why we love you.
You might be the only person I know who swims towards danger.