We had been sailing for only 31 hours from Poole on our non-stop passage to Santander in northern Spain. It was 8 .00 p.m., the wind had dropped to nothing and so we were under Engine at a steady 6 knots. 10 degrees off our port bow one of the crew spotted a whale about a mile ahead, this was our first sighting of a whale on this passage, and we decided to follow to see how close to it we could get. After about half an hour, we had closed the gap and it was now swimming about 75 yards in front of us. We slowed our Engine to reduce our speed to about 5 knots to follow our enormous friend from a safe distance, which we were able to do for about 5 minutes, when with a spectacular flick of his gigantic tail he dived and to our disappointment vanished from sight.

But suddenly, and to our complete amazement, tinged with a fair amount of horror, he surfaced just 30 or 40 feet away on our port side. Now for the first time we could see how long he was, our yacht Henry Morgan is 34 feet long, the whale was at least that long possibly longer. Again he dived, leaving the water alongside us in turmoil. We wondered if he was still with us, and would he surface near us again? When in an instant, there he was just feet away on our starboard side, water pouring off his back and a terrific jet of water shooting 10 to 15 feet up in the air from the breathing hole in the top of his head. After nearly a minute on the surface, still matching our 5 knots, so close that we could smell his breath, he dived again. Now feeling both excited and more than a little apprehensive as to where he would next surface, in silence we waited for his next appearance.

One of the crew was standing on the foredeck, when looking straight down into the water, he shouted “come quickly - look”, we all rushed forward leaving the helmsman at the tiller, there he was, swimming exactly underneath us, his shape mirroring our own, just a foot or two under our keel. For several minutes, we stayed together; over our stern we could see his enormous tail moving effortlessly up and down to propel him. Then to our amazement he turned over on to his back so that we could see his white belly, and for perhaps half a minute swam under us in this inverted position. Then with a corkscrewing twist, he dived away from us and vanished into the depths below.

We saw him twice more, firstly about 50 yards on our port side, and then again about 200 yards away. We did not see him again, or was it her? We did see several other whales on passage across the Bay of Biscay, one sleeping in the water just 50 feet away. But none so close, nor did they give us the same feeling, a feeling that we had in some way communicated with this enormous 40 ton mammal, and made a friend.