Whale Watching in Samana Bay

Ken

Platinum
Jan 1, 2002
13,884
495
83
The World Wildlife fund considers Samana Bay one of the best places to watch whales because of the number of whales and the ease of reaching the watching area. The season begins January 15 and generally runs through March, with mid February the time of greatest concentration of whales.

Humpback whales from the North Atlantic winter in the waters of the Dominican Republic. They feed in the north--Massachusetts Bay to Iceland and Greenland--during the summer months, then migrate to the Dominican Republic to mate and give birth during the winter months. The most popular winter rendezvous for the humpback is Silver Bank, about 70 miles north of Puerto Plata. From there they move between several other areas, including Samana Bay, like humans do singles bars. Whales are always coming and going in Samana Bay, but there are always 200-300 in the bay during the season.

Mature humpbacks measure 40-50 ft/12-15 m and weigh 30-40 tons. Calves measure 10-15 ft/3-4.5 m at birth and weigh 1.5-2 tons. The calves drink 50 gallons of milk from the mother each day, gaining 100 lbs/45 kg daily. (The milk contains 40-60% fat, compared to human milk of 2% fat.)

The whales have been wintering near the Dominican Republic for centuries. Drawings on the walls of the caves in Los Haitises National Parak depict spouting whales seen by the aboriginal inhabitants long before the arrival of Columbus. The log of his travels along the north coast of the DR in 1493 makes clear that he saw them, too.

Whales have been sighted in Samana Bay, and others on the way. So there is every reason to believe that a sufficient number will be in the bay by January 15 in order to begin the whale watching season on that date.
 

Hillbilly

Moderator
Jan 1, 2002
18,948
514
113
You will be happy to know that some were seen

i was told by some golfing buddies that some were seen at the end of December just off the coast of Playa Grande. All play seemed to stop and they ambled by.!!

Off to Saman?!!!

HB
 

Samana1

Bronze
Jan 4, 2002
1,074
0
0
www.samana-peninsula.com
Live Internet Video available about whales in Samana (Dominican Waters)

I am the webmaster of the samana peninsula website http://samana.nl.nu and we have a 45 minutes video available about whales in the dominican waters, i have this video recorded from tv and i hope to add the video to the http://samana.nl.nu website at 9 or 10 January 2002, You can watch live from internet, you need Windows Media Player to watch the video.

so who is interested, im working to add to the website.
The http://samana.org.do website is moved so if you want information about whales you can so visit the http://samana.nl.nu website and http://samana.net website.

Regars,

Sitemanager //samana.nl.nu