Lois M. Smith - September 28, 2007
The boat is quietly rocking in the gentle swells. We have come close to a place not too far offshore where our guide had spotted a blow, an eight-foot geyser of spray like a salty feather adorning a dark lump in the glassy green of the sea. We had all caught a glimpse of a tail, and nearby, a bit of fin, and then nothing. So we sit, silently drifting in the coastal current.
There is something quite unnerving about knowing that somewhere down in the depths below your suddenly small-seeming boat an intelligent and fully adapted creature the length of a ranch house is torpedoing through the coolness, chugging schools of small herring and not-quite-so-small mackerel like a college pledge on a spring-break bender.
Shadowy intimations of ancient Pinocchio-prompted terrors creep out of deep storage. Tick... tock... Then someone shouts and points, and we turn our heads just as a 100 yards away, this gloriously slick black and white-bellied creature in a staggering feat of strength, propels twenty-five tons of itself completely free of all marine clutches, and hangs, horizontally suspended, for a split second of time standing still, before the clock restarts with the jolting slap-swoosh of the mother of all belly flops.
Every human jaw is slack and open, every heart is pounding: it is an epiphanic moment. "That," shouts the guide, "was one heck of a humpback breach!" "Funny," I think, "it looked like Yahweh to me."
Whale watching is one of those thrills that help clarify your place in the universe; it is a heartening and humbling experience that's not to be missed. Fortunately, there are few places in the world that rival Costa Rica's southern Pacific zone as a prime spot for close cetacean encounters - cetacea being the name for the order that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. The jungle-lined shores that stretch south of Dominical have even come to be known as the Ballena Coast, with ballena the Spanish word for whale.
Sierra Goodman of the Vida Marina Foundation (Fundación Vida Marina) explains that there is a very good reason that this area draws so many whales.
It is called the Costa Rican Thermal Convection Dome, a rich ecological zone that results from a layer of warm water that perches atop cold, low-oxygen depths. This convergence of habitats brings together a great diversity of ocean life. Costa Rica's is the only constant thermal convection dome in the world.
Sierra knows a lot about what goes on in the waters off the Osa Peninsula and Ballena Coast because she has spent the past ten years studying this fabulously rich marine laboratory and, in particular, documenting its cetacean population.
The Vida Marina Foundation, which she founded, seeks first and foremost to protect and preserve the marine habitat, promoting research and public education as key components of that goal.
One of the most immediate and effective ways of educating the public is through whale-watching excursions. And guess who runs some of the best and most respectful whale- and dolphin-watching trips in Costa Rica? That's right, Sierra Goodman through the Vida Marina Whale and Dolphin Research Tours located in Drake Bay.
"Costa Rica has the longest humpback whale season in the world, because whales from both the northern and the southern hemispheres come to winter here," says Sierra. If seeing a humpback is your dream, the prospects are good now through March, beginning again in July. And it looks like 2007 is a banner year. "There are just so many humpbacks out there, it's amazing!" she exclaims.
However humpbacks are not the only mammals to be spotted on the Vida Marina trips in Drake Bay and beyond. Also routinely seen are orcas, pilot whales, Sei whales, Brydes whales, beaked whales, and pseudo orcas. And that's just the whales.
Sierra points out that there are huge and diverse populations of dolphins, including common, bottlenose - one resident bottlenose pod numbers more than 1000 - pantropical spotted dolphins, rough-tooth dolphins, and Costa Rica's very own sub-species of spinner dolphins. Not infrequently, Sierra and her crew come upon injured and scarred mammals during their excursions. While many potential dangers exist, perhaps the greatest threat to Costa Rica's cetacea population is commercial fishing, particularly domestic and foreign long-line fishing boats and shrimpers who injure and kill countless whales and dolphins each year.
Humpback whales by the beach in Costa Rica
Sierra is optimistic that the Vida Marina Foundation working in alliance with national and international organizations such as the Mar Viva Foundation and the Nature Conservancy will eventually convince the Costa Rican government to protect the waters surrounding the Osa Peninsula and Ballena Coast.
Sierra acknowledges that an important aspect of achieving a partial or complete fishing ban is to provide alternate employment to the fishermen who now make their living off these waters. "We just can't say, 'Well that's done, tough luck, guys!'"
Some fishermen, however, are already leaving their dangerous and demanding profession, lured into safer and more lucrative employment by the influx of international tourism that is drawn to the area in no small part by whale-watching opportunities. Some former fisherman have even joined the ranks of whale-watching providers.
There is little doubt that the slow recovery of the humpback whale population, as well as that of other cetacea species, is due to international efforts to curb whale hunting.
The growing educational and economic value of whale watching in Costa Rica has played a part in the resurgence of national interest in the issue at the government level, as became evident earlier this year. Costa Rica has been a member of the International Whaling Commission (IWC,) since 1981, but until this year had not sent a representative to the annual meetings for some twenty-three years.
The degree of renewed Costa Rican interest in whale-related matters was reflected in the fact that the nation sent none other than its own Minister of the Environment, Roberto Dobles Mora, as delegate to the 2007 IWC meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.
Uninfluenced by recent acts of Japanese generosity in Costa Rica, Mr. Mora proceeded to vote against Japanese attempts to suspend the hunting ban and to justify its own hunting for "research" purposes. By the end of the meeting, Costa Rica had emerged as an influential and important member of the critical Latin American IWC contingent.
This is seen as a very positive step by Sierra Goodman, who notes that the Costa Rican Environment and Energy Ministry (MINAE) has been very helpful and supportive of the Vida Marina Foundation's efforts to protect the waters off Costa Rica's southern Pacific coast.
"Costa Rica is world-famous for its rainforest, and rightly so," Sierra notes. "But what people don't realize is that Costa Rica's marine zones are equally astounding, they're an unbelievable natural treasure just offshore."
Sir Francis Drake might have found little action to his liking in the area, but you're sure to be far luckier. If you happen to be headed that way, be sure to let Sierra show you just what she's talking about!
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