New Trip Reports: The Maldives
Here are two new whale watching reports from Chas Anderson at the Whale and Dolphin Company. I would love to do one of these trips someday: I tried to get on the 2017 trip but was too late and now I am kicking myself hard.
Maldives, 2016: Chas Anderson, 12 days & 12 species including Fraser’s Dolphins and Dwarf Sperm Whales.
Maldives, 2017: Chas Anderson, 12 days & 13 species including Rough-toothed Dolphins, Dwarf Sperm Whale, Pygmy Killer Whale and Deraniyagala’s Beaked Whale.
This 2012 paper from Chas is a useful summary of the 23 cetaceans known from the area, including 5 species of beaked whale. Exciting stuff!
Jon
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John Fox
I just did his 10 day trip on the M. V. Keana in April. Cathay Pacific offered some great prices for Chicago-Male return in business, lie flat seats all the way. He had a solo cabin available so in two weeks time I was off.
It was one of the best trips I’ve ever done, in many ways. Charles is an affable, accomplished guy and he and his wife Sue have the whole thing down to an art. He gave a talk every evening that was totally engaging. The food on the Keana was superb. You don’t have to check into a new hotel every few days like on many trips. No cars, no driving, no streets, no billboards. If you’ve ever used a ferry or a cruise ship as a “ship of opportunity” to look for marine mammals, this trip is a treat. If we saw something off in the distance we would go there!
I’m not a strong swimmer and I’ve gotten in trouble in ocean currents before, so I wasn’t really there for the snorkeling, though I brought gear. Charles egged me on a bit and I’m so glad he did. Sometimes we had just a gentle, drifting current that went along the reef edge; all that stuff in the books is real :-), really fascinating. Thankfully, a fit of sanity hit me and I decided not to start a life list of fish.
Lifers for me were Striped Dolphin, Fraser’s Dolphin, Dwarf Sperm Whale logging on the surface, long close looks at False Killer Whales, and Deraniyagala’s Beaked Whale (ID by Charles, of course), the first and only beaked whale I’ve seen.
Even sparked up a romance with a lovely lady from Brighton that I’ll be visiting later in the summer. Some trips are just really good, eh?