ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jo Caird is a freelance journalist who has dived all over the world, from the Great Barrier Reef to the Norwegian fjords. Read more about her work at jocaird.com.

My fellow divers and I came to a halt as the magnificent creature approached. At least 3m long, its dark grey skin dotted with barnacles, the whale described a wide circle around us. It was moving fast but there was nothing threatening about the whale’s behaviour – we were visitors in its world and it had simply come to find out what we were doing there.

Breathless with excitement, I pirouetted in the water so as not to have to take my eyes off the whale for a single second. Passing within a couple of metres of where I was waiting, it was close enough for me to look it in the eye.

Having satisfied its curiosity about this small group of humans in neoprene, the whale sailed off, its moans and clicks gradually fading into silence. Shaking our heads in disbelief at what we had just experienced, we swam back the way we had come.

On the boat that evening – we were spending a week on a ‘liveaboard’, diving three or four times each day – the humpback was all we could talk about. Experienced divers all, none of us had ever had an encounter like it.

The following morning, on a dive at another site, while the others got stuck into photographing the reef, I kept finding myself looking over my shoulder. I didn’t really think I would spot another whale but I couldn’t help myself from gazing out into the blue just in case.

Then it happened. A humpback – the same individual as the previous day, a different one, I have no idea – swept past. It was gone before I could get anyone else’s attention. My own private show.