Surrounding the Swell, a converted tugboat, a soup of zooplankton had been thick all day, attracting dozens of humpback whales. For the first time, I watched bubblenet feeding, where humpbacks worked in teams of four, circling the krill and shepherding it upwards towards the sea surface before bursting skywards with substantial gaping mouths to gulp down their prey. Tucked away in a shallow bay as dark fell, blue bioluminescence formed around the Swell. Fortunately, I was in the perfect vessel to witness this magical encounter because later, by comparison, a huge cruise liner, its many decks lit up in the dark, powered down the centre of the wide channel and undoubtedly missed this great cetacean spectacle. The advantage of a micro-vessel adventure had never been more apparent. 

“Although the natural systems are vast, the spaces within them are quite intimate in scale …small coves, narrow fjords, creeks where bears fish, small hot springs, small islets, or kelp beds where animals such as sea lions and sea otters congregate. With a small vessel, you’re a balanced part of that little ecosystem, so you feel a part of it rather than separate,” said Maureen Gordon, Swell's co-owner.