I slip quietly off the back of the boat into the waters of Salt Cay, just south of Grand Turk Island. I’m out for the day with the Turks and Caicos Islands Whale Project team, to document their work for the second season of my nature podcast, Voyage to the Wild. Following marine biologist Katherine Hart’s lead, I swim quietly forward, peering into the turquoise blue waters to spot the giants concealed below. A dark shadow appears. My heart flutters. I watch as it transforms into a mother humpback and her calf, peacefully resting, just above the sandy bottom. “It’s Lucaya,” says Katharine excitedly. One of the many humpbacks who travel up to 5,000 miles from their northern feeding grounds each year to breed and nurse their young in the warm waters of this British archipelago.

Resting in a tender embrace, I see the curious calf peering up at us from underneath its mother. It’s tiny in comparison to her colossal size. But it already dwarves us. We stay floating at the surface observing them. I melt as moments later they rise to us like submarines to take a breath. Now eye-to-eye, I feel their gaze locked onto us. They are curious. The calf clumsily spins on its side to get a closer look, playfully rolling around, still unsure of its buoyancy.

No words can quite capture the feeling of staring into the eyes of a whale. No words are spoken, and yet it feels as if so much shared understanding passes between us. In their eyes, I see intelligence. Sentience. I am lost for words. I can hardly believe this moment is real. 

After 15 minutes we climb back onboard. I feel the ‘whale glow’ wash over me – a term coined by Katherine which she describes as a feeling of peaceful euphoria after being in the water with the whales. And she’s right. It’s a feeling!

For the rest of the morning, we weave our way throughout the Cay where we encounter more mother-calf pairs, singing males and escorts. The density of whales is impressive. Katherine tells me that they have recorded 71 groups and 161 individual whales this season. Many of them are ones which they’ve identified visiting in previous years.

The morning passes all too soon and reluctantly we begin making our way back to land. But on our way, we spot something worrying – a yacht heading into the cay where we were just swimming with the whales. I see Katharine’s brow furrow. She tells me that this is just one of the growing number of private yachts arriving in the islands looking for the whales. The problem is, what they are doing is not illegal.