Some of the loud­est and largest preda­tors in the world are liv­ing just 525 kilo­me­tres (bird's fly) off the coast of T&T and most cit­i­zens have nev­er ven­tured to see them al­though the op­por­tu­ni­ty ex­ists.

The preda­tors are sperm whales which grow up to 70 feet long and weigh about 60 tonnes. They live just three miles off the coast of Do­mini­ca, one of the most un­touched is­lands of the Caribbean.

While male whales (bull) mi­grate from the area, main­ly ju­ve­niles and fe­males have be­come res­i­dent whales of Do­mini­ca. Their mag­nif­i­cent pres­ence makes the moun­tain­ous is­land the on­ly coun­try in the world where the whales can be sight­ed year round.

Dur­ing a tour of Do­mini­ca ear­li­er this month, Guardian Me­dia got the chance to see a pod of whales as they lounged in the deep blue wa­ters on Do­mini­ca's west­ern coasts.

The ocean floor in this re­gion drops steeply to sev­er­al thou­sand feet very close to shore and this pro­vides a calm and shel­tered area for the whales to feed, mate, and so­cialise. Hav­ing been stud­ied ex­ten­sive­ly for over 12 years, the whale pod is very friend­ly and some dar­ing divers (not us) have been giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to swim with them. Dur­ing so­cial­is­ing ses­sions when the whales rub on each oth­er, the divers get the unique ex­pe­ri­ence of get­ting up close and per­son­al with the sea mam­mals which have the biggest brains in the world.

The whale ex­pe­di­tion was among the most ex­cit­ing ad­ven­tures we ex­pe­ri­enced on the na­ture isle. Our cap­tain Dave Fa­bi­en and his crew Nigel Seraphine and Bren­ton Daisy met us at our ho­tel Ocean's Edge Lodge at 8 am and we set off.

Shar­ing fas­ci­nat­ing in­ti­mate de­tails about the whale fam­i­ly, all of whom have been named based on the shape of their tails, Fa­bi­en told us it was not al­ways a guar­an­tee that whales will be spot­ted. If the whales are ab­sent, we were like­ly to see oth­er types of sea mam­mals (cetaceans) in­clud­ing dol­phins and por­pois­es frol­ick­ing in the wa­ters.

Fa­bi­en said the deep coastal wa­ters off Do­mini­ca pro­vide am­ple feed­ing grounds for at least six dif­fer­ent species of cetaceans in­clud­ing whales, dol­phins, and por­pois­es.

The wa­ters are so rich in aquat­ic life that 22 of the 33 species found in the Caribbean live off the coast of Do­mini­ca.

He said the fam­i­ly dy­nam­ics of the whale fam­i­ly were ad­mirable with one ba­by calf hav­ing sev­er­al "moth­ers".

"We have seen ba­by whales suck­ling from one fe­male to an­oth­er fe­male in the fam­i­ly pod. When a fe­male dies, there is al­ways an­oth­er fe­male to take care of the calf," Fa­bi­en said.

He said the whale's di­et is squid and this was abun­dant in Do­mini­ca's wa­ters.

"A full grown whale needs to eat a tonne of squid per day to sur­vive. In Do­mini­ca, we are known for the di­a­mond­back squid and I have seen them grow big to al­most 60 to 70 pounds," Fa­bi­en added.

Throw­ing a hy­drophone down the depths of the ocean, Bren­ton Daisy said they use this un­der­wa­ter mi­cro­phone de­vice to track whales. The pe­ri­od­ic spout­ing of wa­ter from the whale's blow­hole as they ex­hale is the first in­di­ca­tion I got of their ap­pear­ance as they were par­tial­ly hid­den among the waves.

"Our sperm whales are known and thou­sands of pho­tos have been tak­en. We were lucky to work with many re­searchers tag­ging whales. Most of the re­searchers come from Cana­da, Hal­i­fax in No­va Sco­tia," Fa­bi­en said.

Watch­ing the whales take deep dives as they searched for food, sparked ex­cite­ment and won­der that a crea­ture so big could ex­ist off such a small is­land.

Pro­tect­ing the whales

Whales through­out the world are vul­ner­a­ble to the mass ex­panse of plas­tic de­bris that floats out in the Caribbean Sea. In a bid to pro­tect its whale pop­u­la­tion, Do­mini­ca's Min­is­ter of the En­vi­ron­ment, Cli­mate Re­silience, Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment and Ur­ban Re­new­al Joseph Isaac said they had banned the use and im­por­ta­tion of non-biodegrad­able sin­gle-use plas­tics in­clud­ing lids, cups, sin­gle-use sty­ro­foam, plas­tic con­tain­ers, dis­pos­able plas­tic cut­lery, and drink­ing straws. This ban took ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1.

The Gov­ern­ment al­so ap­proved the ap­pli­ca­tion of ze­ro per cent du­ty on the im­por­ta­tion of al­ter­na­tive au­then­ti­cat­ed biodegrad­able prod­ucts (lids, cups, sin­gle use con­tain­ers, cut­lery, and drink­ing straws) and ze­ro per cent du­ty on the im­por­ta­tion of reusable shop­ping bags with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

The six-month phase-out pe­ri­od, for the dis­tri­b­u­tion and use of non-biodegrad­able prod­ucts im­port­ed pri­or to the ban, will end on June 31.

Seraphine, who has been do­ing whale tours for more than a decade, said he was proud of his coun­try's ini­tia­tives to end the use of plas­tic. He said Do­mini­cans were for­tu­nate that the whale fam­i­ly had cho­sen Do­mini­ca as their home.

"Many whales have died from eat­ing plas­tic across the world and those whales which live off Do­mini­ca's coast are pre­cious to us so we must save them," he said.

Hav­ing the largest brain in the an­i­mal king­dom, Seraphine said the whales have two-pound teeth yet there have been no mishaps with whales and hu­mans in Do­mini­ca.

"These whales are high­ly in­tel­li­gent crea­tures and they can dive over 4,000 feet deep. We have re­searchers swim­ming very close to them as they chomp down on squid but they do not at­tack any­one," Seraphine said.

Now con­sid­ered na­tion­al trea­sures, Seraphine said over the past few years, Do­mini­ca's gov­ern­ment has been is­su­ing a few care­ful­ly con­trolled num­bers of in-wa­ter per­mits to se­lect in­di­vid­u­als—re­searchers, rep­utable un­der­wa­ter ex­pe­di­tion lead­ers, doc­u­men­tary film crews.

Tourism in T&T

Kevon Wil­son, se­nior tourism an­a­lyst for Tourism In­tel­li­gence In­ter­na­tion­al said Do­mini­ca has max­imised on the tourist po­ten­tial of the whales. He said even though T&T did not have a whale watch­ing in­dus­try there were many as­pects of our tourism that can be mar­ket­ed abroad.

"T&T has a fan­tas­tic eco-tourism prod­uct, we have wildlife and rain­for­est. There is a mix of eco-tourism prod­ucts that we can mar­ket and pro­mote to the rest of the world. We need to bal­ance this with oth­er el­e­ments of tourism which no oth­er Caribbean is­land can of­fer. When you mar­ry eco­tourism with our cuisines, our cul­ture and vi­bran­cy we can mar­ket this to the world. Peo­ple don't un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate what tourism can do for the coun­try. We have to get the prod­uct right and our mind­set right," he said.

How to get to Do­mini­ca

Do­mini­ca is ser­viced by two air­ports. Dou­glas Charles air­port (DOM) and Cane­field (DCF). In­ter­na­tion­al flights from the US and Eu­rope con­nect through hubs in An­tigua, Bar­ba­dos, St Mar­teen, Puer­to Ri­co, Guade­loupe, and St Lu­cia.

Cata­ma­rans op­er­at­ed by L`Ex­press des IIles fer­ry 300 to 400 pas­sen­gers be­tween Do­mini­ca, Guade­loupe, Mar­tinique, and St Lu­cia. Cruise­lin­ers can al­so utilise three main berths on Do­mini­ca; the Rosea cruise ship berth, Wood­bridge Bay Deep Wa­ter Har­bour and the Cabrits cruise ship berth.