When scuba diving you see a lot of things underwater. Often in the beginning, some of those things can seem pretty intimidating. Being around and sometimes interacting with some of the wildlife that you may run into can be a bit different from what we are used to on land. It is not very common, for most people at least, to run into wild animals that are of a size greater than us. We see a deer, a bear, or maybe a buffalo or elk from time to time, though these are most often fleeting and seen from the safety of our car. Rarely are we out for a walk and come face to face with one of these animals. This rule generally does not apply to the underwater world however. Under water you can often times be just feet or closer to animals that are as large or larger then ourselves, this all depends of course on where we do our diving.

I remember the first time that I was diving and came across a stingray as big across as my arm span, or even the first few times that I ran into barracudas while I was diving. It was a slightly intimidating prospect facing a fish that large. As time went by and these run-ins became more and more common, I soon came to the realization that I had little to fear from these creatures of the deep. Soon I even began to hope on each dive that I would see new and bigger things out there in the deep blue, crossing my fingers that maybe this time a shark or manta ray would appear. It was only a natural progression then that when I discovered that there where Humpback whales who wintered not far from my island doorstep, I only had one choice. Despite my limited budget, I had to go in search of a whale.

Every winter in the northern hemisphere, the tropic waters off the coast of Puerto Rico are host to some of the worlds largest living mammals, Megaptera novaeangliae –the humpback whale. Though not as large as some of their relatives, such as the blue or finback whales; humpback whales are still massive, averaging around 40 feet in length and close to 30 tons in weight. Generally spending the summers in the plankton rich arctic, humpback whales migrate south in the winter months. Despite once almost being hunted to extiction, some, of the now protected and slowly growing population of humpback whales, find a perfect wintering ground for mating and calving in the Mona Passage, part of the Puerto Rican trench, an area of deep water that runs along the west coast of Puerto Rico, just offshore from the city of Rincon. It was there that I hoped to see these majestic creatures while diving.

Upon arriving in Rincon, one thing that you immediately notice is that it is, above all things, a water sport town. As you drive though the main plaza you'll notice a very distinct water fountain. Instead of the usual angel or mythical deity, there is instead a bronze surfer as the centerpiece. Other than being know as one of Puerto Ricos top surf spots, there is also Desecheo Island 13 miles off the coast. Desecheo, as my dive instructor later told me, means roughly “to discard”. Supposedly the name for this amazing dive spot came from the aboriginal inhabitants of the island of Purto Rico who believed that the Island was created with land that even the gods didn't want and thus was discarded into the sea. It is by many considered one of Puerto Ricos top dive locations, along with Mona Island. Though most dive trips to Mona involve either a sleep aboard arrangement or one very long day of commuting, Desecheo is a painless 45 minute (give or take a bit depending on conditions) boat ride from the old marina in Rincon. Outside of diving at Desecheo there are also plentiful local reefs for snorkelers and divers alike.

For me I had my sights set on Desecheo. The local dive service, Taino Divers, offered daily excursions to the island. During the whale season, occasionally humpbacks would swim in amongst the dive groups, out of curiosity or just passing by was anyones guess, but it was my best chance to see these magnificent creatures in the water.

After a long first day of driving, I checked into my hotel and went directly to the dive shop wanting to make sure that everything was set for my dive the next morning, as well as to confirm the time of departure. Everything was set and despite my anticipation and energy for the next days dive, luckily, I was able to make it an early night.

My alarm sounded at 6:15 and I rolled out of bed to a sun just barely poking its head over the mountains. I had made sure to pack all my gear up the night before but I had to recheck. Nothing would be more embarrassing then to show up for a dive to find that you'd left your mask or fins sitting on the floor of your hotel room. I always try to arrive early to a dive but that morning I think I even beat the dive masters. When I arrived it was just one other early bird and I, though soon more began to filter in. There were close to two dozen people going out to the island that day, a mix of divers and snorkelers. We were assigned to one of the two boats as we checked in, signing the standard waiver and loading our gear. The divers seemed to figure out who was going under, versus who was staying on top and seemed to segregate them selves slightly, talking shop about where we'd dived, and how we discovered Taino Divers. Finally it was time, the boats got loaded up, we were given a quick briefing, and we were off.

The ride out was rather smooth sailing, despite some small waves, we made it to the island in 45 minutes. Time passed quickly, for myself at least, as most of the ride for me was spent scanning the horizon for any sign of whales in the water as we passed. Several times in the distance I would see what I thought to be something rising up or an odd shape, every time I would ask myself if maybe I had just caught a glimpse of a whales side or back. Soon I was beginning to doubt my own judgment, as someone later told me, when you see a whale you'll know it. My hopes were running high, even though I knew that at best this was a crap shoot. Underwater life, unlike a zoo, was not something that you could depend on seeing.

Desecheo, almost obscured from the shore in the early morning haze, finally began to come into focus. It isn't the most picturesque island. Almost a solid chunk of rock rising suddenly into the air, sparsely vegetated, and looking slightly out of place sitting in the middle of almost unending miles of deep ocean. The boats brought us in on the southern side of the island where they found their buoys’ and tied up. The snorkelers were given a briefing on what they might expect to see, where it was safe to swim, what to avoid and what to do in case of an emergency. As the snorkelers began getting into the water and the divers began to gear up. Jarod, whom everyone who worked at the dive shop seemed to affectionately call J-Rod, would be our Dive master. He gave us our briefing, everyone did a quick check over all the gear and we were set.

The divers were split into two groups, one per boat, our group was the smaller of the two with just three divers and J-Rod. We entered the water one by one, and after giving our ok's proceeded down to the bottom beneath the boat to wait for the others. Even from the surface you could tell that Desecheo offered amazing visibility. The water, as one of my dive buddy's always like to say, was "like gin", crystal clear. Being the first to enter the water I started a slow decent to a sandy spot on the ocean floor below me, taking in the coral growths and rock formations teaming with fish all around me. Once again I crossed my fingers hoping that, just maybe, I would get lucky and a whale would come for a swim through while we were there. We proceeded over a large field of sea fans and coral growths, an amazing landscape all around us. Even though it was a bit cliché, I always thought spots like this were exactly like what you heard when you first start diving; Where you can see more wildlife in 10 minutes under the water then in hours in the woods. We swam through large schools of black durgon, trigger, trunk, parrot and angelfish, we even spotted a sharp-tail eel. It seemed like we had only just begun when J-Rod did an air check and one of the divers in the group gave the half tank sign.

I looked down at my own pressure gage, still registering almost 2300, and my heart sank. We would have to head back to the boat. One of the great reasons for diving is meeting new people while you are out doing something you enjoy. It really is great to meet people with a common interest, though often it comes with a price. A dive tour is much like a chain, you rely on each other for support if something goes wrong, but even if everything goes right you sometimes have to cut your dive short for the person who consumes air the fastest. We started our swim back towards the boat stopping now and again to take in the dramatic underwater world we were in. Even though I knew better, I still couldn't help peak over my shoulder now and again to see if maybe a whale was heading our way, no luck.

Once we got back beneath the boat J-Rod did another pressure check, the two other divers where both under 1000 psi by that point, I was close to 1700, J-Rod instructed the two others to head up to the boat with a three minute safety stop, he then motioned to me, to follow him. It looked like I wasn't going to have to cut my dive short after all! This time instead of swimming to the deeper water away from the island we headed for the rock walls that formed the base of Desecheo Island. We swam over a wrecked barge surrounded by large groups of angle fish and jacks. Spotting a Caribbean spiny lobster of monstrous proportions.

Finally we headed back up to the boat, and the captain took us further down the south side of the island to the next dive spot. Once again the snorkelers were first to enter the water. The divers had to do a surface interval between dives. We spent the next forty minutes changing over our gear to new tanks and enjoying a bit of the warm spring sun. Once again, like on our way out to the island, I spent a good portion of my time looking to the horizon thinking I could get lucky and spot a whale, still nothing.

Again we were given a pre-dive briefing, and in we went. Unlike the last dive spot, there was less coral and vegetation growing. It was aptly nicknamed “the caves”. Though it had few spots that could truly be considered "caves" in the cave diver sense of the word, it did offer some amazing swim throughs as well as pockets that had formed under the rocky shore of the island. Though there was less coral at this dive site there was still an abundance of wild life, triggerfish, trunkfish, a green moray eel, jacks and more swarmed through the area offering and almost kaleidoscopic array of colors floating past. It was a gorgeous area, but with a building current we headed topside.

The snorkelers were already back and waiting for us, so as quickly as we could we stowed our gear and tanks. The captain warned us that we could expect some heavier chop on the way back in, and we defiantly got it! Despite the extra roll to the boat and a good deal of spray I tried to spend as much of the trip back in once again watching the horizon for any sign of a whale. For some odd reason, despite the fact that it had been an amazing day of diving, there was a little part of me that was still disappointed, despite everything, not having seen a whale in the water.

I vowed that before I left, despite my limited funds, somehow I would see one. If I couldn't afford to dive every day that I was there, then I would have to try the more old fashioned method of sighting one from land. Once we got back to the marina and met up with the divers from the other boat we decided to compare notes between groups over a beer. Though relatively similar in all that we saw, I found out that the other group had ran into a few nurse sharks. One of my fellow divers was trying to get together a night dive for the following evening. I agreed to the night dive but after checking on my funds decided that diving at the island again for a second day would be stretching my budget a little further then I had intended. We all parted ways, myself to get a shower and some food, the others I expected, to do the same.

After the early morning the previous day it was nice to sleep in the next. I couldn't help but wonder if not diving the island again might have been a mistake, what if today was the day that a whale would show itself? I tried to put that thought out of my mind and instead decided to head down to the beach for some sun and snorkeling before I tried to find a place to attempt to do some whale watching. I was told by a local bartender the night before that one of the best beaches for snorkeling was called Steps beach. So I cruised down Puerto Rico's famous Route 413 "The Road to Happiness" as all the local stickers said. Route 413 was to the surfers who came to Rincon in the 60's and 70's almost what Route 66 was to the mainland American's in the 50's. Though, get your kicks on Route 413, just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Steps beach was quite pleasant, and just as the bartender had said there was a beautiful elk horn coral reef starting not more than 30 feet offshore. It was an easy swim with decent visibility, and I managed to get some photos of a two and half foot hawksbill sea turtle. I headed back for shore and waited for the sun to dry me off; keeping a keen eye on the horizon the whole time in the case a whale would swim by. I decided to check out the bartenders other tip, whale watching at the lighthouse lookout.

Not far down the road from steps beach, and nestled between two popular surfing beaches, is a small park built around a rather plain, white lighthouse. It was here that you could often spot the whales as they passed heading north or south in the deep water channel just offshore from Rincon. I headed up and joined the small crowd of people milling around the lighthouse and took up a spot with some shade to watch the water. I settled in and took in the view. The lighthouse was perched on a rocky outcrop overlooking a vast expanse of ocean, with Desecheo the only thing breaking the horizon. From the spot that I sat you could also look down on one of Route 413's many surfer beaches. I began to scan the horizon for a few minutes and paused to watch the surfers momentarily. As I was looking down at the surfers, an older gentleman walked up and asked if I had seen anything yet. I told him not yet, but that I'd only been there for about 10 minutes or so. We stuck up a conversation as we scanned the horizon he with binoculars and me with my bare eyes, I was already started to regret not having brought my camera with its telephoto lens. I must have let my eyes drift away from the horizon for a moment, because suddenly my new friend gave a quick shout. Not thar’ she blows, but simply, there one is! Quickly my eyes darted to where he was looking and sure enough there looked to be a small cloud of vapor hanging above the water. My new friend asked me if I’d seen it, and I said yes though I wasn't even sure that I had, suddenly from the same area we were now watching came several more puffs of breath as a group came to the surface. Word must have spread that whales had been spotted, because where just a few moments before it was two of us standing on the balcony we were now surrounded by people who were “ohing” and “ahing” as the puffs come from the water. Just as suddenly as they had started they stopped. For a few moments there was nothing, it was then that one more puff arose and a whale gave a half breach of the water, revealing its amazing white flippers, before sliding back down into the water. People clapped, and I could already feel the smile spreading across my face that would take hours to finally go away. Even from the distance that we saw the whale from, it was still absolutely awe inspiring. Words could not describe the happiness I felt just from that one simple sight.

After a few minutes the crowd around us began to break up as if everyone knew the show was over for today, but I lingered on in hopes of catching one more glimpse, somehow. Finally, checking the time, I realized I had to get going, I still had a dive to do that night.

I arrived at the dive shop around five that afternoon. Thinking I would see a group but instead I found Rob, the diver that had told me about the night dive, and Izzy, our barrel-chested dive master for our night dive. I asked Rob about the dive at Desecheo that afternoon as we grabbed a couple of tanks and flashlights for our dive, and he told me that although they hadn't seen any whales that day, they had definitely heard whale song, describing it as being so loud that you almost couldn't believe that that is what it really was. Even though I was still excited about having seen my first whale that afternoon, I still couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed that I'd missed such an amazing event diving at the island that afternoon. We finished loading the gear into Izzy's truck, and we hopped into my car to follow Izzy to the dive site.

We ended up diving about twenty minutes north of Rincon to the city of Aquadia, at a location called crash boat pier. The locating was named after the swift boats that the Navy formerly docked to send out for rescue, not after a sunken boat at the bottom as I might have guessed. We had arrived a little early and as we waited for the sun to go down, Izzy told us of all the amazing diving that was available around the area. From sunken Galleons, which still had artifacts washing up on shore after big storms to modern planes that had gone down off shore while the Navel bases where still open around the area. The Rincon and Aguadia area seemed to be a venerable treasure trove of dive sites and Izzy an encylopedia of dive knowledge! As the sun finally dipped down below the horizon we started a leisurely swim out to where we would begin our dive.

Despite the fact that this night actually marked my 25th dive, I stilled had just a small pit of nervous anticipation in my stomach. I think to a degree that is what I like best about night dives. Every dive is thrilling, but there is something about a night dive that still causes my adrenaline to rise a little more than usual. Maybe it is the fact that you don't have the same visibility that you do during the day, just the little cone of light given by your flashlight, or maybe it is knowing that night time is often also a predators time. We descended down to around 25 feet of water and began our dive.

At first, there was still just enough light to get a pretty good sense of our surroundings, but soon it was necessary to flip on the flashlights. The pier was made up of rows of supporting pillars, some of them still in use others just standing upright in the water no longer supporting anything but a host of coral and sponges that had made their home on them. There was plenty of activity going on as fish and the corals began their nightly feeding ritual. We found a Spanish lobster perfectly camouflaged in one pillar, a crab and an eel under some rubble, a porcupine fish bigger then I’d ever seen and several basket starfish that were slowly unfolding to feed. Sadly we didn't find any sea horses that we'd hoped to, but it was a fantastic spot none the less. But the biggest surprise for me came about halfway through the dive, when suddenly very faintly I heard what I’d missed that afternoon, whale song. Though not as loud as what they had heard at the Island that afternoon, it was almost the perfect end to my day. Eventually we came up, though between the three of us it had more to do with time underwater then how much air we had left. We now leisurely swam back to shore chatting about what we'd seen and the whale song that we had heard. Izzy told us that as faint as it was they were probably quite some distance away, but to me, just to have heard it was enough. We decided to celebrate, how else but with a couple of beers after the dive. We headed back to the shop to drop off the gear and then to the pub next door for a bite to eat and drinks. For as much as I love diving, the comradely of a good dive group is almost just as good. We sat and had drinks and dinner, talking about places we dived, asking one another questions about this or that and generally just had fun and enjoyed one anothers company.

Sadly I was scheduled to fly back the next afternoon, but Rob still tried to convince me to give Desecheo one more attempt with him the next morning. I seriously considered it, but in the end had to pass. It would have been more money then I could afford at that point. I'd found trying to catch a whale underwater was a hard thing to do on a small budget, but I was walking away from a fantastic experience with some amazing memories. I wished Rob luck, hoping sincerely that he would get to see a whale in the water even if I had not. The next morning I packed up my dive gear and started the long commute back home, but not before I spent a couple more hours out at the lighthouse, spotting two more whales. This time I did have my camera with me and even managed a few distant photos.

In the end, I didn't realize my dream of swimming with a whale underwater. But that is the price you pay for the excitement that comes with splashing in. If you knew what you were going to see every time you dove than what would be the thrill? All in all it was some stupendous diving. Despite the fact that the photos of the whale that I managed to snap show only a slightly blurry hump, and a slightly blurry tail, it still fills me with joy every time that I look at them. After all even though I didn't get to witness the majesty of one of our greatest water mammals in exactly the way that I had wanted to, in the end, I still did get to see them. I sincerely hope that we continue working to protect these magnificent animals so there will always be, next year to look forward to trying again.