Vietnamese tourists dive with sperm whales in East Africa.

VnExpress•31/05/2023

During a diving trip in the waters off East Africa, a Vietnamese photographer was astonished to encounter a sperm whale sleeping upright in the middle of the ocean.

In May, Nguyen Ngoc Thien, a photographer from Ho Chi Minh City, traveled to the East African coast located between the triangle of Madagascar, the Reunion Islands (France), and the island nation of Mauritius to search for sperm whales, a species of whale that is the largest toothed predator in the world .

Over the years, Thien has studied the biological characteristics and behaviors of whale species, and explored many locations around the world where whale pods live or migrate seasonally, making them accessible to humans. The East African seas have trenches 1,000-2,000 meters deep, which are home to giant squid and sperm whales. These waters are strictly managed by whale conservation organizations and regional governments, with only a few vessels licensed to conduct diving and filming.

The trip to East African waters was originally planned for 2020, but had to be postponed until May of this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Thien said it took him 2-3 weeks to search for, dive, and film with the whales. Despite his extensive diving experience, he still had to thoroughly research the weather, water temperature, currents, underwater landscape and ecosystem, as well as the biological characteristics and habits of sperm whales, to ensure the dive went smoothly.

Diving and filming sperm whales, or most other whale species, requires free diving techniques. This is almost the only way to approach these animals. Using scuba diving creates air bubbles, which can disturb or frighten whales, especially young whales. Conservation areas and whale conservation organizations do not allow scuba diving to approach whales.

"Whales tend to move constantly in the open sea, so only freediving with lightweight equipment can provide the flexibility to approach them. The best divers should take freediving courses to master the necessary diving skills for the expedition," Thien said.

Before diving, Thien's team had to pinpoint the exact location of the whales. To increase the probability of finding them, some vessels invest in equipping themselves with sonar, which detects and records sounds in the ocean. Researchers can program these systems to detect specific sound frequencies and implement classification systems, thereby filtering out certain distinct sounds of each whale species.

After locating the spot, Mr. Thien and the team members dived to a depth of 10-15 meters to get a sufficiently wide and panoramic view of the enormous size of the sperm whale. The average size of an adult sperm whale usually ranges from 12-15 meters, with some males reaching up to 20 meters.

"The feeling of swimming in the vast ocean, surrounded by fish many times larger than a human body, is indescribable. It makes you understand how small humans are in the face of nature's grandeur," Thien expressed.

A mature male sperm whale can be 16-20 meters long and weigh 35-50 tons, while females are about 10-15 meters long and weigh around 20-30 tons. These whales typically dive to depths of 1-2 kilometers to feed, with each dive lasting 1-2 hours.

During this diving trip, the male photographer was fortunate enough to witness and capture the moment a sperm whale slept in an upright position. This sight is considered "one of the wonders of the natural world," extremely rare because when they sleep, their location is difficult to pinpoint. Even ordinary sonar equipment has difficulty detecting them because sperm whales are almost completely motionless below the water's surface and do not emit any sound when in deep sleep.

"On the seventh day of the journey, neither I nor the entire group were lucky enough to witness this spectacular sight firsthand. I managed to capture a once-in-a-lifetime photograph of a sperm whale sleeping standing up," Thien expressed.

He explained that capturing stunning underwater photographs depends on many factors. Three unpredictable elements, which can change at any time but greatly impact the quality of an underwater dive and photography session, are weather, underwater visibility, and the natural environment.

The male photographer said that in his early days venturing into underwater photography, he happened to admire a photograph by Paul Nicklen, a renowned ocean conservationist and wildlife photographer for National Geographic. The image captured the moment a pod of sperm whales were deeply asleep in the middle of the ocean, vertically positioned, like giant pillars floating in the vast, weightless space. The photograph left Thien "awe-struck" by its overwhelming and surreal scene, and it inspired him to pursue underwater photography.

Besides the waters off East Africa, there are other popular locations for diving and photographing sperm whales, such as the island nation of Dominica in the Caribbean. Mr. Thien shared that tourists without the necessary diving experience and skills to approach sperm whales should choose whale watching from a boat for safety. He suggested several locations such as the Great Barrier Reef or Gold Coast in Southern Australia, Kaikoura in New Zealand, Husavik and Azores in Iceland, or closer to home, the De Gi sea area in Binh Dinh province, where whales frequently appear.

After a successful sperm whale hunt in East Africa, Thien plans to dive and film humpback whales in the French Polynesia or Tonga archipelago in the South Pacific .

Bich Phuong

Photo courtesy of the interviewee.

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