BBC Wildlife - UK (2021-12)

114 BBC WILDLIFE December 2021

We had just begun our dive,

heading towards a rocky wall

on Al Qibliyah, one of the

four small islands of Oman’s

Hallaniyat archipelago, when I heard

an uncanny sound. A series of moans,

accompanied by a clicking and knocking

that reverberated through my body.

I looked up to see our guide vigorously

signalling to follow him into the blue –

clearly the dive site we had planned to visit

could wait.

The sounds got louder and louder until

all of a sudden a dark shape came into focus

ahead of us, the enormous form of what I

found out later was a juvenile humpback.

My fellow divers and I came to a halt

as the magnificent creature approached. At

least 3m long, its dark grey skin dotted with

barnacles, the whale described a wide circle

around us. It was moving fast but there

was nothing threatening about the whale’s

behaviour – we were visitors in its world

and it had simply come to find out what we

were doing there.

Breathless with excitement, I pirouetted

in the water so as not to have to take my

eyes off the whale for a single second.

Passing within a couple of metres of where

I was waiting, it was close enough for me to

look it in the eye. 

Having satisfied its curiosity about

this small group of humans in neoprene,

the whale sailed off, its moans and clicks

gradually fading into silence. Shaking our

heads in disbelief at what we had just

experienced, we swam back the way we

had come.

On the boat that evening – we

were spending a week on a ‘liveaboard’,

diving three or four times each day – the

humpback was all we could talk about.

Experienced divers all, none of us had ever

had an encounter like it.

The following morning, on a dive at

another site, while the others got stuck

into photographing the reef, I kept finding

myself looking over my shoulder. I didn’t

really think I would spot another whale but

I couldn’t help myself from gazing out into

the blue just in case.

Then it happened. A humpback – the

same individual as the previous day, a

different one, I have no idea – swept past.

It was gone before I could get anyone else’s

attention. My own private show.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jo Caird is a freelance

journalist who has dived all

over the world, from the

Great Barrier Reef to the

Norwegian fjords. Read

more about her work at

jocaird.com.

Have a wild tale to tell? Email a brief synopsis

to [email protected]

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Eye to eye with a humpback

whale in the Middle East

AL QIBLIYAH, OMAN

ST

EV

E^ P

RE

TT

Y

The Arabian Sea

hosts a small

subpopulation of

humpback whales