A Whale Of A Time Continue…..

The whale surfaced directly in front of the boat “head on” (I had judged the position correctly) looking me in the eye as it seemed to twist it’s body while half out of the water to avoid colliding with the boat, it passing on the starboard side. My team jumped for it. Using there experience as scuba divers, staying calm and working purposefully they simple grabbed hold of the net and rope pulling themselves along closer and closer to the whale and the point at which the rope and net was attached around the tail. The dive team remained calm and controlled ensuring that they themselves did not get caught up and entangled in the net and rope. As the whales tail completed it swimming movement through the water the dive team where being dragged down to a depth of around 15 meters and then back up to the surface again. Three of them managed to hold on and continued to cut through the rope and net at the point at which it had been cutting its way into the whales flesh. I had turned the big boat around and was searching the surface to have some sign of what was happening down there. Some of the other divers where still in the water slashing around on the surface and others had given up and were puffing and panting, sitting on their small boats dotted around the bay. The next 30 seconds seemed like an hour as I could not see my team or the whale. I had cut the motors and let the boat drift to be sure that the two big propellers would not become entangled in the rope and net pieces still floating just below the surface. I was scanning the surface of the water for any sign of them. Another few seconds passed and then I saw them. Close to the entrance of the bay. There they where on the surface amongst a mass of floating white buoys, rope and net. Their faces beaming as they laughed and spoke all at the same time, each explaining what had happened.
What a great moment! The Prodive Mauritius team had done it again. Our reputation as the best was in tact and reinforced.

Everybody was back on board and we had pulled all the rope, net and buoys onto the diving platform and dive deck of the boat. For how long had over a hundred buoys and what seemed like tons of entangled rope and net been dragged around by that suffering whale?
And where was it now?
Everyone was so excited and busy telling their version of what had happened that we had all forgotten about the whale. We decide that she was ‘free’ and had probably raced out to deeper waters.
As we started to make our way back to the north I saw her. Just breaking the surface around 100 meters to our port side. She was following us, swimming with us. Keeping her distance to the port side but she was staying by our side.

As professional Scuba Divers we do practice conservation on our dive sites. Each month we take hundreds of divers down there. We need to ensure that the coral reefs remain healthy and are not damaged by divers. But, we are not the type person who wants to save the world. Or save the whales of the ocean. We respect the ocean and practice conservation.
On this day on the 26th September 2001 we were able to give back to the ocean.

The Whale stayed by our side all the way back until we reached the pass in the barrier reef to enter the bay and proceed to our mooring place at Trou aux Biches.
As I turned hard to starboard to enter the pass The Whale said “Thank You”
She surfaced and sprayed a very big fountain of water as she turned away to deeper waters in the direction of the north/west.

By: Kevin Cock

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Kevin Cock is NAUI INSTRUCTOR, Founder and owner of Prodive Limited a South African with 23 years tourism and diving experience in Mauritius Prodive Limited is a professional prodivemauritius.com”>scuba diving company at the Casuarinas Hotel at Trou aux Biches, Mauritius. They offer easy diving courses, full certification courses (PADI), diving excursions, private dives and exclusive dive charters.