A whale of a tale

So far this break, Justin and I have been completely lazy bums. After the post exam parties pretty much everyone headed for the airport to return to a world of convenience, efficiency, and (most importantly) food. Justin's buddies stuck around for a few extra days and invited us to go to boiling lake with them. It didn't take long to decide that a six hour hike in the heat to see a lake of hot water didn't sound very appealing. At least with waterfalls you can jump in the water and cool off before heading back, but a large amount of hot water? no thanks. Greg and Robert went ahead and made the trek with Robert's friend Amber who is visiting and didn't even try to pretend like we had missed out on anything special.
But when Robert and Amber planned a whale watching trip, we decided to tag along. Robert rented a car and we drove to Roseau.


It only takes an hour to get to Roseau, even though it is less than thirty miles away. There is a place in Portsmouth that offers whale watching trips, but the guide was on vacation this week.
The tour was based out of a hotel dive shop. Our guide, Petra, is from Germany and came to Dominica eight years ago to go on a whale watching trip and never left. She has been keeping data of the whales in this part of the Carribean Sea and reports her data to scientists. There is even a skeleton of a sperm whale that was on display.

There are seven sperm whales that live in the area right off Dominica that they've been researching. I was surprised (in a good way) to find that they were so knowledgeable.


You may recognize this catamaran. It is the same one we took to Les Saintes. We boarded and took off until we were several miles off shore. Petra lowered a sonar device into the water to pick up any whale noises (described as clicks) within a 60 kilometer area. No luck. We started the engine again and headed north.
Justin relaxing on the boat. We were lucky and didn't get sprayed like last time!

When the boat stopped the second time, we listened in anticipation for any sign of whales nearby. Again, no luck.

Waiting for whales

Justin, with a view of Roseau

We continued north for a while and each time we stopped we hoped for some indication that whales were nearby. Are you in enough suspense? Well imagine 3 hours of suspense waiting to hear a noise over the static that would let you know to wait around even longer in hopes that the whales would surface for air nearby. We were anxious. We were tired (and we hadn't even been hiking for hours to see a boiling lake!).

Then we saw something.

A flying fish! It skipped along the surface for a second and then it was gone.

That was pretty much all we saw. Not even pretty much. That was it. A flying fish.

We returned to Roseau at sunset extreemely disappointed.

The bright red roof on the left of the picture is the only fast food chain on the island (besides the subway on campus). It is a Kentucky Fried Chicken. What better to drown your sorrows in but a bucket of fried chicken? That's what we thought too.