Silver Bank continued

As the sun set on our third day at the sanctuary, the wind died down and the sea was calm. We are all hoping now that the last two days will bring better conditions and more whale encounters. Regrettably, although the sea was flat and visibility improved, there

are few whales around and they are only on the distant horizon. There are no animals on the inner reef, and two squalls soaked the tender as we disembarked after a disappointing morning.

The afternoon was not much better for in water swimming encounters. We did follow a very playful calf who amused itself by swimming on its back, rolling around, splashing and peck slapping with its mother. She carried the calf on her head and at her side with the escort who flanked them. Suddenly a large aggressive challenger swam up and proceeded in hot pursuit for quite some time.He showed a lot of interest to our little boat as well , gliding just beneath the surface below our hull and weaving back and forth.He surfaced alongside us and blew with an angry trumpeting sound.Try as he might, he could not get the mother to leave her escort and they sped off into the deep blue together. When we reached 5 miles out from Sun Dancer we turned back in. The whales never stopped to rest. Sadly, another day with no swimming and no photos.

The marine sanctuary area is visually stunning, from the Sun Dancer or the tenders it appears that we are floating on a spacious and luminous sliver blue disk, with only the horizon as far as the eye can see from our mooring.The inner reef is dotted with turquoise swathes of coral rheads. Some of the rocks breaking the surface give the illusion of whales logging or surfacing to blow and breathe. Cruising on the tenders feels like floating across a perfect richly enameled glass plate. The sky forms an azure hemispheric canopy dome overhead, and I now know how early mariners and explorers felt they would sail to the edge and "fall off" in to a void beyond the ocean. The full sun shines down on the glittering water, huge billowy white clouds tower and decorate the sky, then pass over the sun and the ocean become dull and flat. As the sun reappears it looks like a brilliant light switches on, and the sanctuary becomes a glowing metallic mirror once again.