After working on Pico, the Azores, for three years, I assumed I had seen my fair share of what this small island had to offer. Yet nothing prepared me for one of the most memorable few seconds of my life.
I was filming a natural-history documentary, focusing on changes to Pico Island’s community, following the whale hunting ban in 1984.
Preparing for the shoot was a laborious process, especially obtaining a permit to film sperm whales underwater.
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As so often on these expeditions, the first week brought little success because the usually azure waters were thick with plankton. There was no lack of whales – humpback, sperm and blue were seen daily with spray from their blows filling the horizon – but the visibility was so poor we couldn’t observe anything, even from 5m away.
On the last day of filming, I knew I couldn’t go home empty handed and had to capture some footage now the visibility had improved. At our filming location, the water was 2km deep – if a cetacean wanted to vanish, it could.
The skipper manoeuvred the vessel and I jumped into the cold water about 100m in front of approaching sperm whales, hoping one would get close enough for me to film it. Swimming slowly, I could hear the marine giants but couldn’t see them.
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The clicks of their sonar were so strong I could feel them reverberating throughout my body. Suddenly, a 40-tonne bull appeared as if from nowhere and sped towards me. I quickly angled my camera in front of my body like a shield, preparing for the impending impact.
For a split second our eyes met – it was an immense creature, exuding intelligence and a quiet serenity that touched my soul.
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As it passed mere millimetres from my body, the cetacean released a massive cloud of excrement that covered me head to fin, filled my snorkel and turned the water a dark brown.
I surfaced and let out a string of exuberant profanities to the hilarity of the crew on the boat. This messy moment was thankfully followed by a cleaner encounter with a mother and calf later in the day.
Chris Vyvyan-Robinson is a scuba instructor, film-maker and journalist.
