This week my wife and I went whale watching with 3 other couples in the Pearl Islands. This was almost a last minute thing as we were invited to replace another couple that couldn’t make it. Well, it turned out to be one of those unique life-altering experiences. Everybody should have this on their bucket list!
Our guide was Anne Gordon, a well known animal trainer that has done work for TV series and movies in the past. She now lives in Panama where she has married an Embera Indian and organizes tours of an Embera village. She recently started doing whale and dolphin watching tours as well. You can find out more here and here. While I don’t for one minute believe her “spiritual” stuff, or that she communicates with the whales or worse, that she can heal people over the phone by channeling ”Dolphin Energy”, Anne is nonetheless a remarkable woman that has deep knowledge and respect for the animals, especially the whales. At our request, she respectfully kept all of that “woo woo” stuff out of our trip, so don’t let her website scare you away (I nearly cancelled after reading her website).
Anne organized the whole trip including the plane tickets, the lodging, a fishing afternoon and the whole day on the catamaran with Capt. Pascal. So this was a pleasant and worry free trip. If I was to do it again though I might elect to take the 1.5 hour ferry ride to the islands. While Air Panama only takes 20 minutes to get there, you need to arrive 1 hour ahead of time and we had 2 hour delays both ways. On the ferry you might actually get to see whales on the way there too!
Our first afternoon a group of three went fishing and caught 3 large dorados (mahi mahi) and 6 mackerels. These were dropped at two different restaurants on the island (Romantica and Gerald’s) where they were cooked for us for our two dinners on the island. All 9 of us slept in the comfy Contadora Island Inn B&B.
The second day we boarded the 44′ catamaran at 9:30 ( I think we should have gone out at 8 am since we were all ready, but it was what it was). The boat is very modern, roomy, stable and comfortable. Capt Pascal is a very nice guy and he cooked us a nice lunch too. The only disadvantage of the catamaran is that it is very slow so you can’t rapidly get to the whales when you spot them. But other than that, it was the ideal platform to spend a day on the sea looking for whales while respecting their space.
Things augured well when Pascal told us he was awaken by a couple of whales that came right up to his boat in the bay where he was anchored. Only a few minutes after leaving Contadora island, we spotted a smaller boat surrounded by a group of whales so we immediately aimed for them and it took us maybe 15 minutes to get there.
We were first greeted by spotted dolphins as there was a large group of them playing with the humpbacks. They swam right in front of our boat and they were very playful as you would expect.
Shortly thereafter the first humpback came to check us out. Turns out there were 4 adult whales and one calf. This group of whales and dolphins stayed with us for nearly two hours. They were really curious and would pass extremely close to the front of the boat where we were all standing. They were clearly checking us out. On a couple of occasions they even went right under the boat (see the video below).
We had talked to Anne about swimming with the whales and she said she wanted to check what kind of mood they were in first. She was ready to guide us in the water at some point but there were two other small boats in the area and she safely decided to wait for them to leave. By the time we finally got in the water, the whales had decided to move on. We followed them for a while but they clearly didn’t want to play with us anymore.
After lunch we went to “Survivor island” beach to collect some shells and see what the Survivors were up to, but we were not allowed to get anywhere near them. After snorkeling a bit in these beautiful warm waters, we headed back out to look for more whales. While we could see groups of whales on the horizon in nearly all directions we never managed to get close to any of them again. We gave up late afternoon and started heading back to Contadora when all of a sudden one lone whale popped out of nowhere right next to the boat as if to say goodbye, and then dove back down and went on her way.
This was a fantastic trip and our close encounter with the whales exceeded everyone’s expectations and we all came away thrilled. We felt very privileged that these huge but graceful and magnificent animals came right up to us and shared a few intimate moments with our group. The only disappointment for me was missing out on swimming with these gentle giants.
This was an awe-inspiring and spine-tingling experience and I can certainly see why the more “spiritually-inclined” people interpret this as a spiritual experience and invoke notions of “energy” and other bogus pseudo-scientific concepts. But in reality it is just a highly emotionally charged encounter that kicks our brain into releasing adrenaline and endorphins and the storm of emotions that goes with them.
While you and I will never agree on this point Anne, I nonetheless thank you for your kindness, for your deep respect for the whales and for making this experience of a lifetime possible for us.
Highly recommended!
See the complete photo album here.
Because of the big economic boom that’s been happening for the last few years in Panama, there is actually a shortage of hotels in Panama City. That is about to change as many hotel chains are investing heavily.
Hyatt is building two new hotels.
Hilton is building four new hotels.
La Quinta Inn is building 13 new hotels.
Marriott is expanding its existing hotels and building 3 new ones.
Additionally, there are multiple boutique hotels being built (including 4 in Casco Antiguo) and many others as part of condo projects like the Trump Ocean Club.
