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Dominica Sperm Whale Snorkel Encounter, January 4-14, 2026 Trip Report

Friendly Sperm Whales of Dominica!

Reported by: Cindi LaRaia

Photo credit: Gregory Rothman: Cindi above the whales

We were delayed a day, arriving to Dominica due to President Trump‘s invasion and extraction of Venezuelan president!

All airspace to the Caribbean was closed! Of course this was the day we were supposed to arrive! Which was a nightmare because starting early in the morning at the airport they just kept delaying flights delay, delay, delay until they finally canceled!

Another night in Miami!

We weren’t sure how we were going to be able to rebook flights as they were very tight but at the end it worked out five of us made our way.

However, that made us miss our first day of Sperm Whales. We only had five days of Whales booked with six nights at the hotel for the first trip with my group.

The first day we saw Sperm whales and made many jumps. It just wasn’t a good photography day for Whales. Nobody got any images worth keeping... But we had Sperm Whales! 😊

Day two January 6- I kept visualizing whales all morning since I woke up to see many whales in my dreams!!

Our whale Guide did not hear one whale clicking from points as far south as Roseau. You could see Scott’s head, which is the furthest southern point! Then it all began, all the boats started charging. We had several different whales, and a solo whale and a mom and baby.

And then an incredible epic encounter with a mom and baby happened! Normally, it’s the babies that are very curious which this baby was, very sweet and did the cute turning, rolling thing they like to do to show off and make friends!

However, it was the mom, she pretty much bulldozed past me, with her big head. I didn’t know what to make of her. She wanted to be in our laps! She must have been a Labrador in an earlier life! :)

She just wanted love and she gave everybody love & very close encounters, I mean, literally in your lap encounters and she kept opening her mouth, big and wide, and had streamers of squid from an earlier feeding!

It was just amazing even our guide who is not exactly emotional could not believe it!!

He got in the water with us and same thing; she kept coming towards him and he’s trying to back out of her way. We’re not supposed to touch whales. All she wanted was to be touched and loved and rubbed and here’s this giant whale wanting to play and she’s the mama!!!

I’ve never seen anything like it nor has our guide and he’s been there 23 years!

I’m near Greg and suddenly behind me is this giant gray bulbus head and she just settled up beside me and you could do nothing but touch or just to try to get out of her way but that’s not what she wanted!!

I was laughing so hard then she went after Greg and I kept shooting snapshots and took video and it was the funniest darn thing. It looks like she’s trying to gobble him up. Talk about Moby Dick and Ahab. I mean, she was just teasing and playing and opening her mouth what a fabulous, fabulous afternoon with our beautiful sperm whales!!! 🐳 💖

A very fun song our wonderful Taxi driver Omar played for us one morning on the way to the dock! You HAVE to listen to this! LOL!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xif818y9z3g

Jan 7- Lots of whales close out of our dock in the north, yay! We stayed north with J-unit! Lost count of how many - maybe 8 different whales or so!

Thank you Marie for this lovely image of me with the Sperm Whale! Our friendly gentle giants!

Kinda looks like I am going to be gobbled up soon 😊 thank you Greg Rothman for this!

A very beautiful friendly group of Whales just so satisfying to see this wonderful group a little bit spread out so we got chances to swim with different individuals!!

We had four at a time at one point. It was a beautiful day with many whales. Thank you.!! 🙏 🐳 💖

Jan 8- This is the overlap day so there’s 10 of us plus me going to be at dinner. They all just arrived we got them sorted out.

I kept visualizing to the Universe to bring us our big male as we heard one had arrived and been seen the week before, thank you all of my Whale angels. There were no whales until we got way to the south our gui only kept hearing one whale, one whale, one whale.

And there HE was Yep, it was our big, beautiful boy!! Greg called him Charlie Brown due to his zigzag markings!

He behaves very differently than the girls do.

He wasn’t skitterish, but in the south there were far too many boats something like seven whale watching and one boat with a few swimmers, everybody just zoomed up to him every time he came back up from shallow dives so we never got to see him at the surface to get a picture he was already starting to go down, but he was very calm.

We found him again, we kept moving north following him until we lost the other boats remarkably!

And then it was just us, our guide had us just get in the water and be calm and hardly make any motion trying to swim as quietly and slowly as we could towards him and it worked. We had a couple times where he stayed up at the surface long enough so they could get some shots. I got a video of him at the surface and then slowly going down. It was probably my best video yet, a very fabulous four days with the whales!

Thank you all my Ocean Angels for the beautiful time with these beautiful creatures. Everybody is happy! 💕 🐳 🙏

January 9 starts the second group praying for the same success!

We did have whales right outside the port 20 minutes in. It was a great first day to begin. Single whale and mother and calf, swam with them several times. A good first day!!

January 10- We had to go all the way south to Scott’s Head! We had one bigger calf; it kept going shallow. We saw a mother and small calf feeding! Very beautiful!

January 11- double rainbow morning!

We saw probably eight whales, not sure if they were all the same. However, they were very skittish and simply did not want to pose for pictures or stay. They dove as soon as we get to them, the other boats in the area racing up to them and they just were not having it.

We learned this was unit V, our guide says they are very skittish and not very friendly. we experienced all of that today.

However, we had whales. It was not a good photography day. The water was also not crystal clear like it had been, it was a little bit milky.

Tomorrow is my mommy’s birthday and I know she’s going to bring me really good luck with the whales!!! 💕 🐳 🙏

Whales with Leo- copyright Phillip Colla

Had a great whale day! Near us strait out of the port! Lots of jumps! A group of 2 then a family of 5, they went into the sleeping vertically pose! Then another boat dropped people in and ruined it for them & us :(

January 13- our last whale day of the 2nd trip !

We spent about 3 1/2 hours Way Way way west offshore.

Our guide worked really hard because he kept hearing whales and it was Sabretooth. Who is the matriarch of unit T.

She kept shallow Diving. She’s very skittish and would not let us come close. She was with another whale as well. It was very frustrating.

So he said forget them we found out there were whales way far south.

Took another hour and a half to get there, three other boats, but there were lots of whales oh my gosh!!

They told us there were three units that came together, but at the end of the day our guide really thought there were two units together.

We had 13 whales total oh my gosh!! Incredible!!

A beautiful image from Leo Baur with 8 of them!!

Lots and lots of jumps all day, but these were special. There were so many whales even with the other boats they would split up, but there were just so many whales that they were not skitters like all the rest we’ve seen all week. They stayed at the top and I let the boys with the big housings get their pictures. I have lots of people in my pictures, but that’s OK they will share with me, hahah! 😊

It was the greatest grand finale. It was really something to see all these whales together. I’ve never seen this many holy cow. It was absolutely mind blowing.

Everybody was so happy they all got great images thank you all my guardian whale angels! 🐳 💖 😊

A very successful Sperm Whale time in beautiful Dominica!
We will be back!!! 😊
Thank you Dominica!!!
With Love,
Cindi LaRaia / Dive and Africa Discovery Travel

As a side note, we also did some fun land adventures. A row along the Indian River is always very Zen with waterbirds, a lovely short trip.

Also a lovely hike to Syndicate Falls which is gorgeous! I highly recommend it!

Marie Tartar on our first group, her wonderful blog and images. Marie is a superstar!!!

Drone images by Bill MacDonald:

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