Swimming With Sperm Whales [Magazine Preview]

Here’s just a taste of the images we’ll be featuring in the next FRANK magazine that drops at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show this fall.

It was only minutes after meeting marine scientist, explorer, photographer, filmmaker, and founder of Global Ocean Exploration Gaelin Rosenwaks at the Explorers Club in New York that I knew we must run a luscious, multi-page FRANK feature to celebrate her work swimming and photographing sperm whales. And thankfully, she agreed, partly to help promote her book Sperm Whales: The Gentle Goliaths of the Oceans, which provides a beautiful look at these magnificent animals.

But, I could also tell she really just wants to share her love of these massive mammals and her gratitude to be able to free dive with them in the Caribbean. “I was just two years old the first time I looked into the eye of a sperm whale,” she says. “He was nicknamed Physty, short for Physeter macrocephalus. He had fallen ill and was stranded on a beach on Long Island, close to where my family was living at the time.”

“While Physty was in captivity, veterinarians figured out that he had pneumonia and fed him antibiotic-laced squid to help him get well. Nine days later, Physty was strong enough to be released back into the wild to roam the ocean.”

“Fast forward roughly four decades. After working on ocean projects around the world, I began to wonder where Physty would be today. I traveled to Dominica to reconnect with the sperm whales that captured my heart as a toddler.”

Since then, Gaelin has been able to spend hours photographing them sleeping, playing, and nursing, both underwater and on the surface. And she’s sharing some of her best photos in the upcoming issue of FRANK magazine with the hopes to inspire us all to protect these amazing creatures and our fragile ocean environment.

Stay tuned.

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