Our article in the Daily Mail about Andrew and Scar

If you look at the comments in the various articles that have appeared — or, indeed, in pretty much any article about whales in the last couple of years — many seem to be about how evil Japanese people are and about how whales need to be saved.

Here are some excerpts:

• “Keep the japs away or their pet will suffer”
• “I hope his Japanese guests go home and spread the word that these animals are not to killed – for ‘research’ or food!”
• “great pics just a shame they wont be none left soon with china killing everything and eating it”
• “Sorry to be a killjoy but hopefully these magnificent creatures do not end up as Japanese ’scientific research’ victims.” -”Stop buying Japonese goods, till they stop whaling, hit their pockets, its the only thing that hurts them. These wonderful creatures deserve the right to live in peace.”

The comments in our articles aren’t actually that bad when compared to comments in other articles, but it does seem that people have lost the ability to revere the whale and are instead focused entirely on whaling and the supposed evils of Japanese people.

Our articles, which are about how incredible the sperm whales are off of Dominica, are treated the same way as are articles from conservation organizations vilifying Japanese people. It doesn’t matter that no whales are killed anywhere near Dominica, or that Dominica is one of the few Caribbean countries to have reversed its decision to support the overturn of whaling at IWC meetings, or that we are clearly whale enthusiasts who are here to photograph the whales.

Dense readers cannot somehow fathom that two Asian people — assumed to be Japanese, but both of Taiwanese descent — would get into the water without hiding harpoons behind our backs. We are Asian, and therefore only want to kill whales. Tony has been repeatedly threatened in Australia and New Zealand by locals who assume that he is a Japanese person there to massacre their local population of whales. Yes, he is a Taiwanese guy educated in America who lives in Japan, and that is apparently extremely confusing. I’ve experienced this as well, but not as strongly as Tony has.

I am a obviously a supporter of Sea Shepherd and other anti-whaling organizations, but I think that whale conservation groups urgently need to re-focus their efforts to target the real issue of whaling, which is 100% geopolitical and has nothing to do with the culinary tastes of Japan nor its people. I hear that the Independent article I linked to above has not been met with much fanfare from whale conservation groups; instead, the groups pick apart the article by pointing out small factual errors, and then dismiss it entirely. That it is the only article within the last few years to accurately highlight the motivations behind Japanese whaling doesn’t seem to matter.

Over/under image of a juvenile sperm whale in Dominica (Physeter macrocephalus)

We have finished our 6 days on the water here in Dominica, and will be headed home later on today. Our last day was probably a rather typical winter day with the whales here in Dominica, which is to say that we weren’t dropped into a social group within an hour of leaving dock (as we have been on previous days!). We went around the south part of the island into unprotected waters and watched whales from the surface, but were not really able to work with them successfully.

Tony and I were interviewed for local TV last night, and I stressed that Dominica’s healthy reefs and clear water will probably not be seen by underwater photographers (other than the cruise ship happy-snappy people) until the transportation problem here is fixed. American Eagle has strict limits on baggage, and leaving here requires an overnight in San Juan. It takes me longer to get to and from Dominica than it does for me to get to Bali, and even if it were possible to get dive gear and camera rig here via indirect international check-in, it might be impossible to get the gear out.

It has been an incredible adventure, and I will certainly be back one day! [see all photos at Flickr]

A juvenile sperm whale gets close! (Physeter macrocephalus). Dominica. Photo taken under permit.

7 sperm whales in a social group (Physeter macrocephalus). Dominica. Photo taken under permit.

Emiko Miyazaki photographs a group of sperm whales in Dominica (Physeter macrocephalus). Photo taken under permit.

Bulbous frond view of a sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). Dominica. Photo taken under permit.

Over/under image of three sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in Dominica Photo taken under permit.

Over/under image of twp sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in Dominica Photo taken under permit.

Two sperm whales in a shallow dive, Dominica. (Physeter macrocephalus). Photo taken under permit.

Group photo at dinner: Ricardo, Cor, Julie, Tony, Emiko, Curt, Rhona, me, Gabriel and Andrew

Tonight, our hosts Andrew and Rhona Armour invited us to their lovely home in Dominica for a farewell barbecue. Everything here on the island is built on beautiful mountain-side coastline, so their house (which is “in the bush,” Rhona says) is nestled in lush greenery sandwiched between breaking waves and towering peaks. The sky was as dark as I’ve ever seen it, and even Andromeda was clearly visible as a little smudge next to a bright red celestial body (probably Mars).

Rhona had whipped up an incredible feast during the day, which turned out to be the best meal we’ve had since arriving in Dominica. We sat out on the patio in near darkness enjoying great food and company. Peggy Oki, Elisa Buller, and Caleb came out from across the island for dinner as well.

I have to thank Andrew and Rhona Armour and crew members Ricardo Barrett, Captain Curt, and Joel, who were all collectively responsible for getting us in the water with the magnificent sperm whales of Dominica. I really hope to be able to return to see more of the island; Dominica’s undeveloped beauty rivals any other place I’ve been in the world.

Andrew Armour and Scar, his sperm whale buddy

I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to have met Scar, a 10-year old male sperm whale in Dominica. Andrew Armour has befriended Scar and has known Scar since he was a newborn calf.

Here are two photos of Andrew interacting with Scar.

Andrew, a local guide, pets Scar, a 10-year old sperm whale he has befriended. Photo taken under permit.

More of my sperm whale images can be found at Flickr.

A sperm whale calf in Dominica.. Photo taken under permit.

Day 5: yet another fantastic day on the water! We spent most of the day swimming with whales, and all of us have aching muscles. Scar came around for a bit but didn’t seem to want to play. Although we saw groups of up to 8 sperm whales at once, only smaller groups (2-3) seemed to be socializing at the surface. We spent a lot of time with a calf, who let us hang out with him for about twenty minutes.

It’s getting harder and harder to choose images to post because there are just too many! I know — it’s a tough problem to have. :)

As always, all of the photos I’ve posted can be found on Flickr.

Two sperm whales at the surface. Dominica.. Photo taken under permit.

Two sperm whales at the surface. Dominica.. Photo taken under permit.

A sperm whale in Dominica.. Photo taken under permit.

Two sperm whales enter a shallow dive in Dominica.. Photo taken under permit.

A sperm whale hangs vertically in the water. Dominica.. Photo taken under permit.

A sperm whale calf sticks his fluke up out of the water in preparation for a tail slap. Dominica.. Photo taken under permit.

Sperm whale social group (Physeter macrocephalus)

We saw fewer whales today and spent most of the day looking for whales that might tolerate a human presence in the water. A cute little calf (we’re told it’s Enigma’s baby) was accompanied by up to 12 larger sperm whales, but none of us were able to capture all 13 in one frame.

In the photo above, there are nine sperm whales. Three are hanging face up with their eyes closed. Two are hanging face down. Three more accompany a small calf in the distance.

Tony Wu photographs a sperm whale with a waterproof Sony Cybershot

At dinner, our table was adjacent to a table of whale researchers (it was totally obvious). One of them received a phone call, and during the call, we overheard him say something about “Wetpixel,” and that we “may or may not be at the next table.” Yes, we were at the next table. I hope I get to meet you guys before we leave!

Speaking of dinner, we’re still trying to find a way to have dinner in less than 2 hours, but there simply doesn’t seem to be a way. Island time is fun and relaxing, but not when you are on a daily schedule. Breakfast is also always a >1 hr struggle.

Some good news: we discovered the secret blue menu at the Anchorage Hotel, which features cheaper, more interesting food. The hotel’s official dinner menu is both expensive and limited, so we’re going to avoid that starting tomorrow.

This may look like a black plastic bag, but it’s actually sperm whale skin,
which is constantly being shed

Good night!

My timelapse workflow involves bringing all of the images into Adobe Lightroom, setting white-balance and 16:9 crop on all images, and exporting as JPG to be opened as an image sequence in Quicktime 7 Pro. I noticed yesterday that one of my timelapses had a jump exposure in the middle of the movie. Upon close inspection, I discovered that the change in exposure was due to Lightroom treating RAW files differently than sRAW files! I had forgotten to set my camera to record sRAW images and ended up switching to sRAW in the middle of the sequence.

Below is an example of the difference between RAW and sRAW conversion. Images were exported from Lightroom with identical settings.

Lightroom conversion: RAW on left, sRAW on right. sRAW has brighter conversion.

However, when I extract JPG thumbnails from the RAW images, the exposures look identical:

Successive frames of the timelapse when bypassing Lightroom

If you’re a die-hard Lightroom user, be aware that it processes RAW and sRAW differently! The frames are sufficiently different that it makes mixing RAW and sRAW in a timelapse sequence impossible in Lightroom.

Tonight’s timelapse is below. I wanted to use the Recovery tool to pull back some of the blown-out area around the sun, but the Lightroom issue prevented me from doing so (and I was too lazy to use DPP).

Until tomorrow!

Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) rub up against each other while socializing

After yesterday’s incredible encounters, we left dock (late — island time!) and ventured north, where we were told sperm whales had been sighted. After an hour and a half of cruising, we spotted a tight bunch of whales on the surface, and when we dropped in, we discovered 11 sperm whales! 9 of them were clustered together in a tight ball, and 2 were off to the side a bit.

The whales were clustered with their heads touching each other, and were rubbing up against each other constantly. Many of the males were aroused, with penises sticking out, which like in humans, seems to be very common amongst juveniles.

In this group, the echo-locating clicks were louder than usual, and when I got within a few meters of the group, my body resonated with every crisp POP. The water around the group of whales was full of sloughed-off sperm whale skin (which looks like pieces of black plastic bag) and all of the whales’ surface activity had filled the water with micro-bubbles. Difficult conditions for photography. Luckily, they let us get really, really close.

Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) rub up against each other while socializing

After 30 minutes, the a big female appeared and the whales started to move en masse, following her. I was in absolutely perfect position for this and watched a beautiful scene unfold (shooting video) on the back of my Canon 5D Mark II — 7 sperm whales glided by my camera, the closest of which was less than 2 meters away. My lungs were burning, and I felt like I was going to pass out. Unfortunately, I had gotten off sync and ended up recording a bunch of clips of my fins. EPIC ECHENG FAIL.

I know — I can’t complain. The social group performed for us for half an hour, which was absolutely incredible!

Later on in the day, the crew started shouting in excitement because they saw a large male off in the distance. They are incredible spotters, and could identify the sperm whale as being a large male just from seeing its blow. Tony, Andrew and I jumped in and swam hard toward the male, which had already attracted 8 juvenile whales.

Andrew says that a few weeks ago a large male showed up. They had 32 whales on the surface at once. I wish I had been here for that gathering!

A large male sperm whale attracts 8 juvenile and female whales

This particular male wasn’t as big as the the one we saw in Ogasawara in October, but it was still impressively large. His fluke was at least twice the width of any other whale in the group.

A split image of a social group of sperm whales

I can’t believe the encounters we’ve had in just 2 days. All of us are exhausted, but we can’t wait for another day on the ocean. As always, I’ve posted more photos on Flickr.

All images taken under permit.