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"So Darned Huge"
Randy Thornton, 50, had never let living in a landlocked desert keep him from his passion of exploring the sea. An owner of a Salt Lake City music production company, he decided to buy a scuba-diving shop with a friend five years ago, so he'd have another reason to spend his spare time in the water. After he and Gwen, also 50, took up diving in the early '90s, "it was all we wanted to do," he says. "That feeling of weightlessness and seeing creatures that few people get to see -- it was marvelous." Randy and Gwen had been on numerous trips to Mexico, Belize and the Gal´pagos Islands to swim with dolphins, rays, squid, even hammerhead sharks. Their three children grew up in the water, exploring coral reefs and snorkeling among tropical fish. Family vacations usually involved counting starfish instead of roasting marshmallows.Now, with the kids out on their own, the Thorntons decided to pursue their dream of observing whales up close. Randy signed up 16 of his friends and customers to join them at a cost of about $5,000 each. But Silver Bank is such a popular attraction, with limited access, that the group had to wait almost three years to fly to the Dominican Republic and climb aboard the Aggressor. Among those who made the trip last February were the Thorntons' friends Bridgette Server, 39, and her husband, Brit, 37, avid divers who'd hoped to film the whales. Bridgette's parents, Don and Janet Blackwelder, a real estate developer and homemaker, 65 and 60, were among the oldest in the group.
After breakfast that first day, everyone put on snorkeling gear and split into two groups to take inflatable boats some five miles out to a large breeding ground for hundreds of humpbacks. For months, the whales, who begin their travels from as far as the Arctic each fall, stay in the shallow reef to give birth, teach their young and carry on courtships in the subtropical waters.
Randy and his group stayed at the reef for three to five hours a day, floating on their stomachs to look facedown through the clear turquoise water at the whales below. At first, Randy felt nervous around the mammals "because they're so darned huge," he says. Gradually he began to relax.
"We started to feel so comfortable," says Janet. "It was easy to forget just how powerful these creatures are."
"Wow, check it out -- a baby whale!" said Randy, pointing to a smaller humpback spouting near the inflatable boat. All week long, he and his team had hoped to observe a whale calf up close. Now, on the last dive of their vacation, they were getting the chance. A mother whale was drifting with her baby 20 feet below the surface, while an escort male, a whale hoping to breed with her, watched nearby. It was just before 5 p.m., and the ocean glistened in the late afternoon sun.
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