Whales in Nuqui

To be honest, I don't know where to begin when it comes to Nuqui, Colombia. I just remember feeling immediately connected to the incredibly vibrant nature and people that welcomed me there. An instant click. The first thing I did when I arrived was obviously go to the beach and marvel at the Pacific Ocean, knowing that thousands of humpback whales were just a mere few kilometers away. The first whale I saw in the wild was in Nuqui after having been infatuated with them ever since I can remember. Fortunately my first whale observation was nothing other than spectacular, so spectacular, in fact, that I was able to publish an article about the experience as it was so incredibly rare what we had witnessed. I first went to Nuqui because I had found an opportunity as a marine mammal researcher and conservationist. We had many projects going during the four months that I was there. We would go out to sea and conduct monitoring transects, we had projects with sea turtles, plastic cleanup and recycling, workshops with the local kids, and more.

My first life-changing moment occurred on my very first monitoring day. Monitoring consists of three days of about 6 to 8 hours at sea in a little speed boat while utilizing a transect line to perform a zig-zag pattern to cover the whole gulf. Our intention was to record the marine species we saw at the surface. Upon observing life on the surface we would deviate from the transect line and perform a proper observation; recording the weather, position of the sole, the wake, the direction of the wind, type of species, type of behavior, etcetera. During one of these observations we were witnessing an adult humpback whale and a baby humpback swimming calmly southward when suddenly we noticed another species of whale interacting with the mom and baby; which was later to be identified as a Bryde’s whale. Not long after the appearance of the Bryde, yet another adult male humpback approached and all 4 whales interacted for a few minutes. They were swimming in circles and making sharp movements. The mother and baby left shortly after the arrival of the male humpback and continued on their journey southward. The Bryde and the solitary Humpback were left. The humpback was displaying aggressive behaviors by slapping his pectoral fins against the water and swimming closely behind the Bryde as the Bryde tried to evade its stalker. This interspecies interaction was so intense that my fellow scientists and I decided to leave the area and continue with the monitoring transect. My heart was pounding and I had chills running through my body like never before. I still get chills when thinking about it.

However, there's more. I was also a whale watching tour guide responsible for relaying information about the whales in the area, their migration, anatomy, and how to conserve them and their environment. Once while performing these duties, I experienced yet another life-altering moment with whales in the pacific waters of Colombia. We were observing a group of male humpback whales in competition for the attention of the females that were surely nearby. There were about 6 or 7 whales. They were swimming fast and changing directions often. Slapping their pectoral fins and tails aggressively against the water and breaching, occasionally lifting their entire massive body’s out of the water. Then, suddenly, two enormous whales breached side by side at the same moment. After the gigantic sound of the crash that their body’s had after slamming back into the water, silence ensued. Everyone on the boat was speechless and in shock, including the captain and sea-men that spend every day at sea. My heart was slamming in my chest and tears came to my eyes. Fortunately, I was somehow able to capture a photo of the moment even though my eyes were not focused at all on the lens but were instead fixated on the powerful environment that were my surroundings.

I could continue speaking about incredible whale moments forever, but Nuqui has even more to offer. So much more. Not only is the Pacific Ocean off of Nuqui filled to the brim with life, but so is the jungle that is just a few meters from the shore. Birds, frogs, snakes, jaguars, pumas. The plants! The fruit! I was learning of a new fruit every single day for literally months. They would joke that if you drop a seed, a tree would grow next week. A bit of an exaggeration, however, it does speak to how fertile the environment truly is. Occasionally, I would set off into the jungle with some friends and maybe go to a natural hot spring and sit and stare at the foliage above me while covering my skin in a completely natural and mineral rich paste lying at the bottom of the spring. Other jungle times would consist of putting on our big boots and walking around with machetes to cut down ripe yummy fruits to snack on. My favorite hang out ever in life is at Playa Olimpica. You have to take a short little boat ride from the mainland to a small island across the mangrove. Here, we climb to the other side of the island to a completely virgin beach with no sign of human intervention in sight. This is where my friends and I would split up. Some would fish, some would search for fruit, others started making a fire and cooking rice in the pot that we would bring. We would fry up the fish, cook up some plantains, put it all on top of some rice and squeeze a little lemon on top as the finishing touch. We used banana leaves as plates and our fingers as forks of course. 5 star meal in my opinion, although you must be very careful with the fish bones, I learned that lesson the hard way. After our meal we would jump into the ocean and play in the waves. There were times I was in the ocean off of Playa Olimpica for hours and hours at a time, allowing the current to move me down the coast and then swimming back. An absolutely remarkable experience.

I would also like to speak about the people and the community in Nuqui. I immediately felt very welcomed. Friends were very easy to make. The culture is drastically different from that of Kansas City, Missouri. The town consists of a few thousand people and not a single one of these people will walk by you on the street without saying some sweet greeting. My five minute walk to work would always end up being about 20 minutes or more as I would stop to have beautiful conversations about how we had slept, what we had eaten for breakfast, how the weather was feeling, and any other thing either party felt like mentioning. The people truly live in the moment, they move slower, they do not follow the constraints of time as they move from one thing to the next depending on when they feel ready. At this point, I know just about the entire town, as I have been two years in a row and will be going again this year. I migrate with the whales to Nuqui; I understand completely why the whales have chosen to return every year to this absolutely pristine environment to enjoy the calm and warm waters and mate and have their babies. It is truly a magical and spiritual place. I have so much more to say, honestly I haven't even scratched the surface of the profundity and complexity that is Nuqui.