The best working day in Nosy Be
- Friendly Fins
- Dec 20, 2024
- 8 min read
Updated: Mar 7
Hello Friendly Fins, today I am inspired to tell you about a “typical” morning of our work in Nosy Be.
In this period we have the pleasure of hosting only tourists from the Czech Republic and a few evenings ago a nice gentleman asked me how I got to Nosy Be to be a diving instructor, something completely unusual let's say, but a very frequent question! And so without going on too long I mentioned some salient stages and told him that ours is not an ordinary job! He smiled at me and said:
“Of course! Your work colleagues are whales, dolphins and whale sharks! There is very little ordinary in all this!”
So thinking back to that conversation, I felt like telling you about a morning of our work here at the Amarina resort in Nosy Be, experienced by me, Chiara, in first person.
The long-awaited day
I will tell you about the most intense day for me, namely the morning of whale and whale shark watching. In the special period that goes from mid-September to about mid-October, in Nosy Be, there is the most unique and rare possibility of spotting the extraordinary humpback whales and the superb whale shark, in the same outing.
Surely for some people this moment means nothing, but for me it is the most adrenaline-filled time of the year!
The anxiety of that morning
On the morning of the sightings, there is no need to set the alarm… The excitement always starts around dawn and I wake up with the anxiety that there will be bad weather and/or rough seas; in this way the possibility of finding whales and whale sharks begins to decrease, not to mention that in any case we are going to look for these animals in the “sea” and not in an aquarium! A small possibility of not meeting them always torments my mind!
Who's going to explain it to our 16 guests on the boat if we come back empty-handed?
Highly intractable then, I open the door of the room:
“the sun is out, I feel little wind, I would say acceptable, well come on that's already something!”
After the crucial moment of breakfast, I arrive at the diving center, I observe my sailors who smile, they already know that the morning will go well, I don't yet!
We all get on the boat
All the guests are present, excited and very motivated! We climb aboard our Joker boat, the 250 horsepower engine will take us to infinity and beyond! I introduce myself and the two captains, a short explanation of the boat and behavioral notes... We set off all creamed and smiling! I like having enthusiasm on board, it calms my nerves a bit!
We sail towards the South of Nosy Be, the first half hour is usually just sailing, until we arrive in front of the island of Nosy Sakatia, where, usually, there starts to be a bit of movement on the surface.
The Humpback Whale Calf
Let's start looking at the horizon! What are we looking for? Anything that isn't "just water", a puff, a big splash, maybe a humpback whale jumping! Suddenly the boat accelerates, my captain smiles at me, "ok he saw something otherwise he wouldn't play a prank on me with my nerves on edge!"
I look at the horizon and there, the breath of a humpback whale rising forcefully like a fountain on the water… Needless to say, after seeing this wonder I weigh a kilo less and the nerves slowly leave my body! There it is on the surface, one of the most magical animals in the ocean is right in front of us!
Wait a minute: there are two of them, there is a little one with her! They are mother and son! The excitement on the boat is now unstoppable, the festival of shots, videos with phones, go pros, cameras begins! I think that living this delicate moment in the life of two living beings is truly special.
At the beginning of the season we spotted several mothers with their babies, precisely because they come to these warm waters to reproduce and give birth, the babies were just born, tiny compared to their mother, very shy and insecure, they needed to be cared for and helped with everything, even to stay on the surface. A scene that really opens the heart!
But now everything is different! Now the little ones are one month old, they have grown by 45 kg a day and have become rascals! In fact, the cute, super bold puppy begins to jump out of the water on his back and drop like a sack of potatoes, and then another jump, again and again! He hits his tail on the water and returns near his mother who hasn't lost sight of him for half a second.
This scene immediately makes everyone smile, including me who still can't understand, after all these weeks of sightings, how is it possible that they still steal my heart like this, more and more each time!
The beauty of spotting the mother and the already grown-up cub is that we can stay
close enough to them without running the risk of making them run away, we follow them excitedly for about twenty minutes (and who can leave this place?) until they give us the unique spectacle of jumping out of the water together, rotating that white belly out of the water and letting themselves fall on their backs… Ok, they can’t give us more emotion than this! A roar of joy in the boat reassures me, so I decide to say goodbye to this splendid family and divert us elsewhere.
I never like to spend too much time following the same animals, both out of respect for them and because I don’t want them to get too used to boats and humans… Not all of us are good…
We get closer to the coast, my captain is right to believe that the King of the Ocean could be in those parts… Let’s go then!
Swimming with the whale shark
We begin to see some movement on the surface; in fact, the whale shark wanders around particular points called feeding grounds, where it finds plankton (its only food), which also attracts small tuna and sea birds.
We begin to look for it around these points, it is not always easy because either it is right on the surface observing very carefully the dorsal fin and/or its dark polka-dotted shape; or at a shallow depth to be able to glimpse just its dark shadow.
The feeding grounds do not bring us great results, we are deciding to move, when suddenly… There it is! The whale shark all alone on the surface, calm, peaceful, with that regal air that only a 7-meter shark can have!
Whale shark watching in Nosy Be is very regulated and when you find a specimen, each boat has to respect its turn based on the time of arrival on site but today… Today we are alone, we spotted it first and we will enjoy our whale shark in peace without time limits!
The shy shark continues to swim calmly on the surface and we are ready to meet him: we must take our time, never dive, do not overdo it with the noise and above all do not touch him... There is no compromise on this and I am happy that the guests understand why: he is a very shy shark but he lets us get very close, this does not make us free to touch him, especially because we hurt him: by caressing him we remove a special protective film that serves to protect him from parasites, bacteria, fungi, which would cause diseases.
After these recommendations we finally enter the water, I open the group: my task is to always follow him so as to give reference to the sailors to get people into the water as close to him as possible... Here he is: he immediately passes by me and I feel a pleasant shiver down my spine... How beautiful is this animal with his perfect body? His little lateral eyes, who knows how they see me! He enchants me every time, but I'm not the only one, I have to come back to reality... I turn to see my guests, everyone is watching him in amazement, they swim near him, they film him, no one is struggling because our shark is swimming slowly, as if he wanted to be admired perfectly by us.
I take some pictures of him too… This year I decided to collaborate with the search for the whale shark in Nosy Be, I need to get a picture of the small area above the left pectoral fin along with the coordinates of the GPS point where we spotted him. Thanks to this data we can update the sightings and find out more about him.
We spent ten minutes with this magnificent animal, I think one of the absolute records, usually it is not so easy but our calm and his calmness found a perfect match!
Getting back on the boat and finding people ecstatic fills me with joy and also gives me a lot of satisfaction, being able to introduce animals so rare, so special, to people who are totally strangers to this world but who appreciate it, makes me feel really good!
I trust my captains a lot and their great experience, who knows if one day I will become so good at finding the whale shark too!
Dolphins, symbol of freedom and joy
The morning is coming to an end and we begin the return journey, but I can't go back without trying to look for dolphins, sometimes they are in the same place and sometimes they move out to sea... Today, however, luck smiles on us and I see a beautiful gray fin shining among the waves, and then another and another!
There they are, there is no need to change course because they are coming towards us to play with the waves produced by the movement of our boat! How wonderful, they convey a unique sense of freedom.
In these months I have often seen the emotion ignite on the boat in front of humpback whales,
pilot whales, whale sharks, but nothing ignites enthusiasm like a group of dolphins jumping and strutting around our boat. I for one go crazy every time and that I have seen in my life, but every time is like the first!
We stay with them for fifteen minutes, we admire them jumping, doing pirouettes and we look for the pups that are too funny: always close to the mothers but with the typical exuberance of children.
As always, I am asked if it is possible to swim with them but dolphins are wild animals, contrary to what we have always been led to believe, they are animals like all the others: very curious but also protective when they have their babies, so I always prefer not to dive into the water with them, interfering as little as possible with their habits.
This time it is really time to return to the resort, lunch time is approaching and the scorching heat of midday is starting to be felt and seen on the reddened skin of our guests.
Here, this is an ordinary working day here in Nosy Be… My favorite day!
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