It was late afternoon and the sun was low in the sky. I’d spent the entire day, and many days prior, scanning the horizon for signs of life. My small boat bobbed up and down in the swell. Every now and then, a wave crest slapped its fiberglass hull, creating a resounding clap and shooting a curtain of spray skyward.

The shimmering glare of reflected tropical light was overwhelming. I squinted and rubbed my eyes as a haze of brine and dissolved SPF 50 blurred my vision.

When a faint puff of condensation shot into the air on the horizon, I thought it was a mirage, an artifact of fatigue and my compromised senses. But when I saw a second, I knew there was only one thing it could be—the exhalation of a surfacing whale. Excitedly, I counted a third, then a fourth, a dozen… no, hundreds!

That’s how I came to witness a phenomenon few have ever seen before.

Skimming over the waves, I stopped the boat a short distance from where I had seen the whales’ last blow and slipped quietly into the sea. I could scarcely believe my eyes.