You’ll hear plenty of whale talk in Dominica.

Off Scotts Head, waters plunge

more than a mile deep

and from these waters sixty-footers

breach and stare you down

like giant oncoming catamarans.

Pods are easily located.

The bulbous-headed bott

often visit the surface

and you will quickly note

there is no stranger music than

the migratory singing humpbacks’ theremin wails.

It happens all the time,

there’s no off-season here,

boats don’t need to burn

a day’s fuel to find

the beaked, the brydes, the minkies and the pilots.

And on the odd day when they are scarce

you may console yourself with dolphins,

especially the spinners

that leap and twirl like acrobats

in the circus of your wildest dreams.

Remember:

drop-offs are close to shore

and you are never very far from the deeps.