We listen before we move
The engine goes off and the hydrophone goes down. Once we pick up clicks we get eyes on the whale about 95% of the time — that's the difference between searching and finding.
Dominica · Lesser Antilles · Caribbean
Swim with sperm whales in the deep blue of the Caribbean
Six sea days off Dominica, home to over 200 resident sperm whales — six hours on the water every day on one private six-guest boat, November to May, with a team that has run these expeditions for 21 years.
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6
Full sea days
6 max
Guests on the boat
200+
Resident whales
21yrs
Years in Dominica
Why Sperm Whale Swims
Found by listening, not by looking.
A sperm whale spends most of its life below 400 metres, hunting squid in the dark. You will almost never spot one first — you hear it. A train of clicks carries for miles, and our entire day is built around that sound.
One private boat, six guests
Lady Rose — a Bertram Sport Fisherman 38 with a head, shower and fridge aboard. Six guests maximum, never shared with another operator. The most comfortable boat in Dominica set up for this.
21 years of Dominican seasons
A US-based team with two decades in these waters, local skippers and guides who know the resident units by sight, the whale permit handled, and rooms at Fort Young — booked as one package.
“The whales decide the day. Our job is to have you kitted, briefed and over the side the moment they surface.”
What to expect
Wild whales. Honest odds.
We leave the dock at 7:30am and take the full six hours our permit allows to search for and swim with the whales. In between we run the leeward coast, cut the engine, and listen. Some days a family unit stays with us for an hour. Some days you get fifteen seconds and a sound you feel in your chest. Both count.
Dominica's whales live in matrilineal units — grandmothers, mothers, daughters and calves — and the same families come back year after year. They are used to people in the water and they are not performing for anyone. Nobody can promise an encounter, and we won't.
Nobody can promise you an encounter, so we don't. We publish the log instead — every sea day of last season, rated by the captain, below.
6hrs
On the water every sea day — the full permitted time to search and swim
3max
Swimmers in the water at a time, under Dominica's permit rules
Nov–May
Our season. Closed June to the end of October for hurricane season
0
Dive certifications required — if you can snorkel, you're ready
2025/26 season log
What last season actually looked like.
We log the whales sighted and a swim rating for every day the boat goes out. Here is the whole of the 2025/26 season, averaged — the record weeks and the month that broke ten years of form, together.
105
Sea days logged
16 Nov 2025 – 1 May 2026
16 Nov 2025 – 1 May 2026
75%
Of those days we found sperm whales
49%
Rated 8/10 or better by the captain
4–5
Days with whales on an average 6-day trip
Eye to eye in the blue
Mothers & calves
Dominica · Nature Island
Expeditions
Two seasons open: 2027 & 2028.
Booking now
2027 Season
Fort Young Hotel · Nov–May season
- 6 sea days · 7 nights at Fort Young
- Weekly departures from 2 January through 29 May
- Season reopens 13 November after hurricane season
- Whale permit, vessel, captain, guide and breakfast included
From
Package details →$6,850 USD
New dates
2028 Season
Fort Young Hotel · Nov–May season
- 6 sea days · 7 nights at Fort Young
- Widest choice of weeks — nothing sold out yet
- Six guests maximum · four guests minimum to run
- Whale permit, vessel, captain, guide and breakfast included
From
Package details →$8,250 USD
Prices are per person on double occupancy. Holiday weeks are priced separately. A group runs with a minimum of four guests, and the boat takes six.
Watch the film
Six days with the whales
Get an overview of all of it — the boat, the hydrophone, the leeward coast, and what happens when a forty-tonne animal decides to come and look at you.
Filmed on location in Dominica.
Where is Dominica?
Dominica. Not the Dominican Republic.
Two different countries, 975 km apart. Dominica is a 290-square-mile volcanic island in the Lesser Antilles, wedged between Guadeloupe and Martinique — English-speaking, around 66,000 people, and known across the region as the Nature Island. The Dominican Republic is a Spanish-speaking country of about eleven million, up on Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles.
29mi
Long and 16 miles wide — 290 square miles of rainforest and volcano
66k
People. English is the official language; the currency is the EC dollar
2
Airports — Douglas–Charles (DOM) in the north and Canefield (DCF) by Roseau
975km
From the Dominican Republic, which is not where you are going
Guest stories
They came for a photograph. They got looked at.
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Groups & film crews
Take the whole boat.
Six is already a private group — book all six seats and the week is yours. We build charters for dive clubs, photography workshops, families and documentary crews, and we've supported productions in Dominican waters for years.
Flexible schedules, permit coordination, topside support, and rooms held together at Fort Young.
Other tours from our family
More oceans, same heart & soul
Sperm Whale Swims is part of SDL Expeditions — small-group swims with the ocean's greatest animals, around the world.
Six seats a week · Four to run
The whales live here. The dates don't wait.
The pod is resident, so there's no migration to chase — but there's only one boat, and weeks fill in order. Pick your week and we'll handle the permit, the boat, the guides and the rooms.