Madeira 2010, day 7

Yesterday I called Juan (H20 Madeira) and he said that today's chances of seeing a Bryde's whale would be great as he had seen the same pair of mother and calf 3 days in a row and, so, this morning I drove to Calheta with high expectations. Little did I knew what the Atlantic had in store for me. Simply put, two sperm whales - my fetish whale - that I was fortunate enough to swim with about 2 miles offshore, between Jardim do Mar and Paúl do Mar. It's worth mentioning that all these shots were taken at 17mm and that the sun disappeared after the first one.


This was the first one, which magically materialized out of the blue and sadly kept on going when I dove.


The second one was an all different matter. I spent a whole 10 minutes with it (ok, 9m and a few seconds, I checked the exif data :)), about 5 of which it stayed in this position, slowly rotating once. After this shot I dove a few meters by its side, foolishly trying to imitate it. However, when I reached for the camera my lungs were already burning and I was so overwhelmed that it was really hard to keep calm.


I approached it a little more and it then came to the surface, kindly showing its belly. We were so close. This close.

A big and heartfelt thank you to Daniel and Sr. António, for their most valuable and patient help in making these moments happen..