The Ocean Alliance is dedicated to the conservation of whales and their ocean environment through research and education. The Royal Melbourne Zoo is a leading international educational institution in Melbourne, Australia.

With the popularity of the PBS web series, the Voyage of the Odyssey – Chris and Genevieve Johnson of earthOCEAN developed the Ocean Encounters education initiative – a series of videos, images and sounds presented on DVD with educators from the Melbourne Zoo.

Everybody remembers seeing their first whale, and most people experience their first close encounter on a whale watch trip. For me, it was a magnificent blue whale off Monterey Bay, California. But watching whales in Patagonia is a whale watching experience like no other, watching whales here, is truly a close encounter! Southern right whales in Peninsula Valdés are perhaps the best-known wild cetaceans on earth. I made my first acquaintance with these right whales last year, and felt compelled to return to see them again.