I myself have never had one of those moments when I looked into the eye of a whale and knew we shared something special — no, nothing like that. My encounters with humpback whales happen mainly through sound. Along with being a philosophy and music professor, I play music for a living: some of my fellow musicians are humans, but just as often they are animals, and sometimes those animals are whales. I sit on a boat, swaying in the waves, headphones on, listening to what goes on below and try to play along.
I don’t do it often — there always seems to be some technical problem setting it up. It’s hard to find a boat with the right amplifier for the underwater speaker. Or I can’t charter a skiff or zodiac for this kind of work because officially it counts as harassment of marine mammals, which is against the law.