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Whale watching
Whale-watching as a local tourist industry was begun in the 1980s by
Kim Beddall, then an itinerant scuba instructor with no formal training
as a marine biologist although she's since been instrumental in the implementation
of a code of conduct for whale-watch boats. Beddall still runs excellent
whale tours through her Whale Samaná/Victoria Marine operation,
Malecón (tel & fax 809/538-2494; US$38), and if you're here
during the season, you won't find a more enthralling excursion.
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Humpback
whales have used the Dominican Republic's Samaná Bay and Silver
Bank coral reef sanctuary as a nursery and breeding ground for untold
millennia. They return each winter after spending nine months fanning
out across the North Atlantic and by mid-January more than twelve thousand
of them move around the waters of the country's northeast coast. They're
at their liveliest in Samaná's tepid depths, as males track females,
compete for attention and engage in courting displays, while mothers teach
their calves basic survival skills. 
Adult
humpbacks grow to 15m long, weigh up to forty metric tons, and are black
with distinctive white patches. Among the behaviours that you may see
while whale-watching are breaching - hurtling the entire body above the
surface before landing back down in a spectacular crash - and the trumpet
blow - a tremendous, low blast that can be heard from several kilometres
away. Humpbacks also engage in the whale songs , an eerie combination
of moans and chirps formed into short phrases that are shuffled and put
together in a basic form of communication. All of this is done to advance
the serious business of mating and birthing . The female gestation period
is a full year, so calves that are conceived in the bay one year are given
birth here the next; there's a good chance you'll see at least one of
the babies, which can weigh a ton and are light grey.