Whale Watching in Dominica

[ddauber]

Has anyone done these tours for a cruise excursion?  Looking at local PH Whale watch and Dolphin tour.  

Thoughts?  Thanks

[Mim Lloyd]

About 3 years ago we went on a whale watching catamaran trip with Andrew Armour. We had a Cruise Critic group for our cruise and someone posted asking if any of their fellow cruisers were interested. Ended up with about 50 of us. Cost about $50 each and we had a great day. The catamaran was right by the ship, was large and comfortable and not at all crowded. Andrew is known as the 'Whale Whisperer' and is an expert on the sperm whales in the area and where they're likely to be. We saw quite a few whales which was fantastic. Here's a link: 

https://www.superyachtservicesguide.com/20/20240/andrew-armour-the-whale-whisperer

[ColdCruise]

We just went whale watching a couple weeks ago and saw 5 sperm whales lounging on the surface at overlapping times. I think in total we spent close to an hour with the whales. We did it on a ships excursion ($139) but the tourist office sells a similar tour for about $85.

 

2nd best whale watching experience I’ve had (best was in Alaska). 
 

what made this good? 
apparently there is an underwater trench that runs from Martinique to Gaudeloupe … right past the west side of Dominica. There are pods of residential sperm whales who live there year round, composed of females and offspring. The whales stay underwater approximately 45 minutes feeding then come to the surface for about 15 minutes to rest and breathe. These combine to make it fairly easy to find at least 1 group of whales during a 3 hour tour ( hehe) with some rudimentary listening equipment ( our guides used a good underwater microphone with a kitchen colander backed by some neoprene for a sound concentrator.)

 

All of the above was described by the guides … I was on vacation so didn’t bother researching to confirm veracity. It was a successful trip.