Swimming with Blue Whales

The Pindito Diaries

I have just spent two blissful weeks on board the MV Pindito, sailing around the Banda Sea.

If you’ve ended up here, reading this, perhaps from a spiral of a couple of google searches or hunting for reviews of swimming with various giants around the world, you might be interested to find out if you'd like a liveaboard experience where you sail into the middle of the ocean and spend nearly two weeks in the blue, looking for blues. If you would like to save yourself the reading time, the short answer is: it is.

The only boat that operates whale swim trips in the Banda Sea in Indonesia is Pindito. Pindito was first built in 1992 by the bare hands of its’ owner, Edi Frommenweiler. If you know much about Raja Ampat, you may know he was the man who pioneered explorative diving throughout the archipelago and was one of the people who popularised this paradise to the legacy it is today. Nowadays, Pindito spends her life travelling all around Indonesia, with trips dotted across the country over the course of each year. You can find her in Raja Ampat, the Komodo Islands and, of course, the Banda Sea, where I first met her.

I joined a whale-macro cruise, for which the clue really is in the name. You spend mornings or afternoons looking for whales, and subsequently afternoons or mornings scuba diving the area (or snorkelling, if you choose- and I often did).

Many liveaboard boats market themselves as high luxury, or make you feel like a carefree pirate, or take you to remote places you could never have dreamed- but I have never been on a live aboard before that does all of this and simultaneously makes you feel like you’re home the second you step aboard. Edi himself was on board for this trip, and at some point during our 12 day expedition and he said to me ‘the moment I am most proud of my boat is when a returning guest boards and heads straight to the salon to grab themselves a drink to settle in because they feel like they belong here’. He has cultivated such a cosy, welcoming atmosphere and has such a kind, thoughtful crew, that I believe he probably has those moments very, very often.

However, trips like these aren’t only about the boat. At the end of the day, we’re all really here for the wildlife. We spent 12 days on board, from the 12th to the 25th of October, slap bang in the middle of blue whale season.

The blue whales we get here are in fact pygmy blue whales. They are a separate species from the blue whales, the main distinction being that they ‘only’ grow to 25m, while the blues can reach up to 33m. The PBWs are here during their migration to give birth and raise their calves before heading down towards Antarctica- which means you’ve got a pretty high chance of seeing a mum and calf around these waters! As far as we understand, they don’t travel all the way to Antarctica but stop in the plankton rich waters just north, which is their home for most of the year.

Our first day is an arrival day, with new guests getting a tour of their new surroundings- and repeat guests of course headed to the fridge for that first drink of the trip. We all settle in and quickly discover that this trip is going to be Bad News for anyone who thought they might be able to lose a little weight from all the swimming and diving we would be doing as we are clearly going to be fed like kings. Then we have the usual welcome presentations and How Not To Fall Overboard talks. If Edi is on board, he does what he calls his ‘Edi blah blahs’, which are short, funny talks giving an overview of what will happen over the next few days, and what we’ve seen and where we’ve been that day.

The next day began with two dives at 8 and 10am, then sailed to a remote island. Several crew members spend pretty much the whole trip on the very top of the boat under a sunshade, armed with binoculars and sunglasses. It never takes them long at all to spot a blow. You may assume this would be a blue whale. I know I did. It didn’t occur to me that there might be other species hanging around in the area- and boy was I delighted to be proved wrong almost daily throughout the trip. Ape, the cruise director, quickly informed us that it was, in fact, a sperm whale. This is quite an easy one to recognise from afar because of the shape of their blows. The sperm whale blowhole is positioned at the front of the ‘forehead’, and slightly to the left (we think this is because they sleep vertically and this means they can come up for air while keeping the vertical position during sleep on top of breathing as they swim along at the surface). Because of this positioning, their blows will always puff out at a diagonal angle, away from their body in the direction they are travelling in. Little did we know, we were about to get a very up close view of this.

We went out for about 2-3 hours and managed about 6 drops with the sperm whales. All in all, there were probably about 20 dotted around the bay, which was great as we had four boats with four guests on board and we were able to split up so we weren’t overwhelming any one whale or pod. Our best swim was the third drop. We would generally get dropped about 50m ahead of the sperm whales, at their 11 or 1 o clock and hope that they would continue past us on their trajectory. In this one drop, two whales instead decided that we were the most interesting thing about their day (we could say the same to you, friends), and swung around just after they had passed us for a second look at us. One opened its mouth on his way past and we got a real good look at the teeth, which are only along the bottom jaw in sperm whales. We probably could have kept at it for another seven hours, but food was calling and we needed to keep travelling on to our island for the night, so we headed back to Pindito to eat significantly more calories than we had burned off.

As aforementioned, there is no potential for weight loss on Pindito. You get fed approximately 700 meals a day, with snacks like fruit and nuts permanently available- and free rein of the bar, too. At 7am, before your first excursion, they put out little fruity delights (two fruits a day- my favourite days being the watermelon-mango days!) and a tub of bacon with bread, butter, jam and the usual toasty suspects. During this time they will take your order for Second Breakfast which will be served between 9-10am. There is a whole delicious menu, from nasi goreng to pancakes, but I can only personally speak to the Pindito McMuffin as it was so tasty I didn’t try anything else the whole time.

Then they send you on another adventure and are ready to feed you again by the time you return. You are summoned to all mealtimes with a little bell (Pavlov’s divers) and, as I recall, every single day I said I wouldn’t eat lunch, I just wanted to see what it was. So obviously I wolfed something down every single day. The menu is extremely varied, from Indonesian dishes to Italian, Vietnamese, Indian and all the cuisines one could hope for. I’m honestly not sure how they manage to plan and accommodate for 12 days worth of meals for 16 humans- plus 24 crew- and still make every dish delicious and unique, but there you have it. Dinner is between 6-8pm, depending on whether there is a night dive happening, and is the same varied delectability, with a special mention to the paratas on the last evening, which are simple sort of pancakes to pair with curry, but somehow were just mind blowing.

Day three was simply perfect. While the trip we are on is a whale-macro trip, advertised as mornings or afternoons with whales and vice versa scuba dives, this is an extremely flexible itinerary and today was dedicated entirely to blue whales, simply because there were so many around for us to play with. It seemed a waste to scuba dive when the Big Blues were knocking down our doors. I love scuba diving, but I’ll be the first to admit that the blues were what I was most excited about, and this was about to be my first (and second, third, fourth, fifth- SIXTH!) time in the water with one of the biggest animals to have ever existed, let alone to live on earth now.

Boy, do the boat crew know what they’re doing! You have one driver and one guide per boat, but the guide doesn’t get in the water- he stands at the front of the boat predicting where and when the whale is going to swim by you. It takes some serious finesse, and serious trust in them, as sometimes they tell you to jump and you feel like you haven’t seen a whale in forever and have no chance of seeing anything underwater. But they are almost always spot on. You do as you’re told and it is as if they are there waiting for you. Their approach is similar to the sperm whales, except that sperm whales are generally moving along at a glacial pace, whereas blues are acting like they’ve got someplace important to be ASAP. They swim at an average pace of 8-10 knots an hour (in layman’s terms: really quick) so if you don’t slide in as soon as your guide tell you to, you’ve probably missed your opportunity. We switched around crews throughout the day, so got the opportunity to have Dani and Hadi driving us, with Reckel and Ape as our boat-based guides. The whole time they are with us on the water, there are still crew on the top deck of Pindito looking out for better or closer opportunities or flying the drone to get a unique angle.

It took us a few goes to get the hang of this and we missed a few drops, but by the end of the day we were well behaved experts and oh my goodness we had SWUM WITH BLUE WHALES!!!! I am still at a loss for how to describe how it feels but the main thing that blew my mind was how long it took for the whales to swim past us. Not because they were slow- I mentioned already how fast they are- but because they are so BIG it feels like a train swimming past you. First you see the giant head looming towards you, then the eye as it takes one short glance at you, then the pectoral flippers which often have a little white on the ends as if they have a penchant for getting their nails done. After that comes part one of what I call ‘the tummy area’ which seems like it carries on forever, and part two of the tummy area, then part three, then part four… what I’m trying to say is, this species has a LOT of tummy. The dorsal fin sit towards the back of the whale so by the time you come across that, you’re seeing the tail fluke too, whether they are carrying on horizontally or going for a deep dive. It somehow feels like a whole lifetime and simultaneously not even long enough to process what you’re looking at.

In the morning, we dove again. The dive site of the morning was called ‘shitty place dive’. This is because once upon a time they took a German guest diving there and he said ‘this a shitty dive. there are too many fish to look at in all the directions and I can’t decide what to take a photo of’. The crew found this hilarious, and they have since christened it after his non-complaint. It is one of their favourite dive sites in the Banda Sea, so who was I to resist. The German guy was right, though. There were fish in every possible direction you could look in, and some of the healthiest corals I’ve seen in a long time. The safety stop was teeming with life, so for the late morning dive I opted to snorkel to spend all of the allotted dive time in the shallows, marvelling at the soft corals in the bright blue water. We ended up spending the whole day here (truly, they love this site so wanted to make the most of being here), which gave us a little time to pop the drone up and have a look around. Briefly mentioned that the nearby island looked like it might be cool to explore and Edi said he would take us and some paddle boards over tomorrow morning to explore. Every day was another testament to how flexible everybody was and how dedicated they were to us all having a great time and making the most of the trip in whatever way we wanted to experience it. It really heightened the experience- especially as the island was AMAZING.

With there being four separate speed boats on board, the guests were able to split up a little the next day, with some of us diving again, some heading out to look for dolphins, and some (including myself) having the Robinson experience. The paddle boarding was more like a float with the current, then carrying the board back across land, but it was in beautiful clear water and it was the quintessential paradise island with palm trees left right and centre.

And then came Thursday, the sixth day, which was probably the highlight of the trip for me. We were whale-bound with Adrien at the helm and Vicky as our trusty guide, and we quite simply found the perfect whale. The drops were absolutely spot on, we had really found our routine for getting in, and our whale just kept giving us the best, closest passes and seemed to be slowing down for us as he went by. We got some truly delicious side profiles and I am still (about two paragraphs later) at a loss of what to say. I have swum with humpback whales, minke whales, sperm whales, pilot whales, all kinds of dolphins, and too many species of shark to count. There is NOTHING that delivers this sense of awe the way the (pygmy) blue whale does. This creature is approximately 13 times bigger than me or you, and you can really sense it. The magnitude is incredible, nothing has ever made me feel so small and happy simultaneously. I could spend the rest of forever reliving this moment.

We had more blues in the afternoon, who were slightly less cooperative, but fortunately a small pod of spinner dolphins came to distract us instead. Earlier in the trip, Edi had said to me ‘as long as you are looking at the ocean, you will find something’, which I had originally taken as some sort of philosophical comment. It turns out the Banda Sea is just covered from head to toe in animals to gaze at lovingly, and he was simply stating a fact.

As we had a cetacean day, the next day was then scuba-centric. We went to a place called Snake Island, where all the dive sites have one common species: snakes. They are technically Sea Kraits, which you can tell because of the way their tails are flattened at the end, and they are beautiful. They loved the dome on my camera, so I got a few really cool close encounters with them. We did four dives throughout the day (including a night dive, which I skipped- it’s been a tiring week of adventure!) and the snakes were present in them all. Though they were definitely the highlight, the rose corals at these sites were so expansive and healthy that they took up half my camera roll, too.

I am fairly convinced the crew on the top deck can all see further than the horizon from the species they were spotting constantly in every direction all week. Our first whales today were at 06:05am. The Pavlov’s bell has three purposes: one ring means food, two rings means there is something cool to look at and you should run to the top deck, and three rings means get ready for diving (or snorkelling! or exploring!). For such early whale spotting, they will ring the bell twice, and see which of us early birds appear and if there are enough people to rally together for some in-water action. There were actually so many whales that in the end we decided to pop and do a scuba dive first, so that we could dedicate the rest of the day to our favourite mammals. Some of us skipped the dive to take the opportunity to drone and whale watch, and then the hunt was afoot.

From the second we got out on the water, it felt like we were surrounded. It was hard to keep track as there were so many individuals popping up in similar areas, or at similar estimated time intervals. Looking back at the footage, it seems like we swam with four different whales based on their cookie cutter scars and leading edges (the shape of the end of the fluke). The visibility was absolutely incredible, this was the first day we got to take in the WHOLE whale underwater all at the same time. Truly we were swimming with whales today. In hindsight, the other days we were observing them in their element but this felt like we were sharing moments with them. Maybe we just found more friendly whales or maybe they also are more comfortable in the clearer water, but they were in no rush to swim past us today and we got about 6 or 7 mind blowing interactions. The best was the last drop- I left my camera on board and dove to about 12m with only the GoPro- it seemed like the whale waited until I was nicely in position and then dove riiiiight past me. One of the best things I’ve seen underwater in my whole life. It’s hard to pick a winner between today and day six for the best day- if I’m honest it’s probably a draw because they both made the ocean feel like pure magic.

In the afternoon we went for a snorkel and found four black tip reef sharks, wildly healthy coral and even a nice rock to jump off of. And, not forgetting about being constantly tortured with an onslaught of delicious food, we arrived home to brownies!!!! The post-afternoon dive snack was always the least healthy and most enjoyable. At night we anchored up at the foot of a volcano and we had the only rain of the whole trip. It poured down and the atmosphere was exquisite.

We’ve reached day 9, and a couple of us woke up at 5:30am in order to climb a volcano. I had thought of myself as quite the hiker until our two guides essentially ran ahead of us in flip flops, occasionally offering us water to ensure we did not die of dehydration. The whole summit took us 2 hours and 2 minutes, although at 1 hour 58, we stopped, completely surrounded by fog. We assumed this was due to us having reached the peak and got out our celebratory apples and bananas. We enjoyed them for about 15 minutes before the guides said ‘okay are you ready to go to the top now?’ Which baffled and bemused us, but we continued on and reach the summit a mere 4 minutes later, whereupon we simply took a few selfies, given that we were fresh out of victory snacks. Visibility was still a solid zero and it took half an hour or so until we could see well enough to believe we truly were at the top this time.

The way down was a hoot, spent mostly rolling or on our bottoms, voluntarily or otherwise. It was VERY hot and we were absolutely drenched in sweat, which meant any contact with the floor or even a dirty branch resulted in thick layers of mud being transferred onto our skin and thus we returned to the boat, unsure if we would be allowed to board due to our overall grossness.

After approximately three showers, and a small kip, we were taken to the ocean right next to the volcano, where a lava flow from a 1989 eruption had travelled. In 30+ years, the coral here has truly flourished and there were finger corals and rose corals as far as the eye could see. The visibility was delightful and we played around taking split shot photos trying to capture the coral at the foot of this giant volcano.

Then we did a night dive with the mandarin fish and saw them having sex (lasted about 7 seconds) and saw some cute little pipefish which stole the show for me!

This was the only day of the trip that I missed sunrise, and that was because I slept like a baby post-hike. When I finally arose, we already had four whales in four different directions, but we went diving first and searched for more whales in mid morning. Found a couple and had four nice drops with a couple of different blues. It is starting to become the norm, just as we are running out of time on the trip. We have really got the water entry down-pat and are able to fully make the most of each encounter- now it just depends on how the whales are feeling for how much we get to see!

Then a dusk dive around 4pm, which was the most currenty drift dive of my life. We were zooming along like little race cars around a track. Fish in literally every possible direction and nook and cranny, as well as a giant moray eel and a few frogfish (and apparently a shark which I missed). This was probably my favourite dive of the trip, and we even surfaced to hot chocolate in the sunset. Loving life!

What started as a slow day turned into one of the best days ever (basically all days on board). Started nice and slow, skipped diving to look for whales- to no avail. Took a risk and skipped the second dive to look for whales again- but instead we found an oceanic manta ray! It was close enough to the boat than in a panic we simply jumped overboard (after grabbing our gear, of course) and swam towards it. By the time we got close it had disappeared and the speed boat came to pick us up. We floated to its’ last known location. We didn’t see it for a little while so eventually just decided to hop in and hope for the best. Obviously being the luckiest humans alive it quickly swam over for a closer look and we all got to oggle our new buddy for a few minutes before it decided to sneak off to the depths.

We were going to wait and see if he or she reappeared when we got the call that there were pilot whales close by!!! Upon closer inspection it was spinner dolphins- a pod of about 300!!!! We had several semi-successful swims but the true joy was watching them from the bow of the boat jumping and interacting and playing in the wake. Definitely a few babies around practising jumping and overall amazing.

To top it all off, when we came back to board Pindito, they told us not to get on board because they had seen sperm whales in the area for us to give a try! We managed to swim with a tiny baby! At first we thought the sperm whales just looked super small compared to all the blue whales we’ve been seeing, but when it swam up to us we could see it had all the wrinkles and remoras (and size) characteristic of a ~1 year old.

Spend the afternoon and sunset chilling, then got in the water around 20:00 for a night dive in the hopes of seeing coral spawning. The way there and back under the stars was absolutely magical, and sticking with Edi whose lights shine brighter than the sun, was brilliant. The best encounter was a very active octopus who we got to see swimming around and changing colour. Missed the coral spawning but still had an amazing time.

We started today with a double snorkel morning! Firstly we found a couple of reef sharks and then on the second snorkel we were Freediving down to say hello to all the scuba divers- which resulted in a few fun silly selfies. There was a cave at 23m which made for a really cool swim through (and a fun way to surprise the divers on the other side).

En route to our next stop we found pilot whales from the top deck of the boat! Maybe about 200 of them. Incredible to see but they (the whales) wouldn’t let us in the water. Returned to boat and just read a bit and enjoyed being on the best boat of all time. This was the night of my favourite meal of the week: curry with parathas. Could have eaten 74 (I think I might have).

This was our last full day, so we headed into the harbour near the airport for some muck diving. This is supposedly a world renowned site for tiny critters, and we found heaps of cool stuff! Lots of octopus and cuttlefish and nudibranchs and even a tiny lion fish. As we couldn’t get in the water for scuba the rest of the day, we spent a lot of time playing bananagrams- and sadly packing.

When I was writing this post, I thought about making it less of a diary entry and roll all the days and experiences into one, but in the end I decided to leave it like this so you can really get an idea of how the liveaboard lifestyle really works on a day to day basis. Each day is dedicated to something different, with the most important aspect of the itinerary being flexibility. Swimming with whales is a dynamic activity and the crew do an incredible job of knowing when to focus on whales, and when to entertain us with other water based activities. This is one of the most professional crews I've worked with, but also the most passionate and genuinely invested in us, the guests, having an amazing time.

Pindito is the only boat that runs blue whale swims in Indonesia, and this means that when you are out on the water, you have the whole place to yourself. The guides know which whales seem more promising and when to say goodbye or end an interaction. Every drop was probably less than a minute- these whales aren't interactive or curious in the same way that humpback whales can be. You're not going to get a blue whale edging towards you and trying to work out just who or what you are. Jumping in and out on the commands of your guide is no easy feat- it can be exhausting and you are sat in the hot sun often for hours waiting for the opportune moment. But the sheer magnitude of the animals puts everything into perspective and is worth every second spent searching.

If you have never swam with any kind of whale before, maybe humpback whales are a better bet. Swimming with them is much easier, and they will often show interest in you. However, if you're up for the challenge, I can honestly say that I have never in my whole life felt anything like the emotion of adrenaline combined with awe as the mighty blues were passing by my tiny little existence.

Anyway, the point is, if you'd like to swim with blue whales, I think you should. Head to www.pindito.com to find out more about their trips- and if you book one of their trips, please tell them that catsharks sent you! It means a lot to me. I hope you have the best experience of your life.