Page 47 - Port Douglas Magazine 39

“When we went snorkelling on the Great Barrier
Reef, we expected to see wonderful corals and “ODI ET AMO” (HATE & LOVE)
colourful, lovely fish - which we absolutely did. But “I hate minkes!”.
nothing had prepared us for the experience of
swimming with a minke whale! We haven’t had This was my motto back in Iceland. Small, quick, hard to spot, difficult to
lots of experience of snorkelling or indeed diving in photograph and impossible to show to people traveling with me. They
were not interested in me and I was definitely not interested in them.
exotic locations so seeing a whale so close by felt
like an almost impossibly lucky experience. But up in the north of the Atlantic Ocean, during summer, minkes are
We were looking down, straight into the blue, focused on feeding as much as they can, they don’t have much time
seeing nothing precise. Then, suddenly, an almost to play with boats. Additionally, in 2023, while I am writing this article,
ghostly silhouette would form and then, slowly, it whales are still hunted for their meat in Iceland and Norway, so they
better stay clear of boats. But after half an hour, after a privileged
would come closer and closer and become clearly experience, swimming back to the boat I only have one thought in mind.
visible against the blue, until it was just there, mere
meters away from us, almost still yet moving. It was “I love minkes!”.
an other-worldly experience, seeing this incredible
animal taking shape from the depth, circling around FEDERICO FACCHIN PORT DOUGLAS
us, breaching for air and then disappearing again.
Incredibly, it kept coming back, so curious, clearly
wanting to look at us as much as we wanted to
look at it.
Thinking back about it, I still feel the shivers of
being in the presence of something so majestic and
so elegant. I cannot quite believe it happened.” Follow Fede’s adventures around the
- FRANCESCA & GIOVANNA globe & view his gallery of amazing
wildlife photography and prints
INSTAGRAM @oceanic.fede