Humpback Whale Swim (Day 2 of 6)

Day 2. I will say right now that I had thought about taking a photo trip because I really wanted great pictures from this dream of getting to swim with whales. I decided that I would not do that because I wanted to spend more time concentrating on the experience and less time worrying about taking the best photo. I was just hoping that one or two pictures would come out. Well...this post is really hard because I took so many pictures...it is difficult to cull down and decide on the best of the best. Hopefully, it will tell an interesting story with the right pictures to share a bit of the majesty. It was an amazing day!
Day 2 started the same way as Day 1. We had breakfast and headed out. The first group of whales that we spotted did not want to play. We followed the group up and down as they paced up and back next to an island. Since they were on the move, we went to seek a more social group.
We headed out a bit further north than we had been the previous day. The interesting thing to me was that Ullie (our boat driver) headed out wherever he felt like. The whale boats do not use tracking or spotting equipment or anything...just internal whale sense. Sam (our whale guide) would stand on the roof and watch and Ullie would stick his head out of the window and they would both look for spouts. The other 3 of us on the boat looked out other sides of the boat scanning the horizon for signs of whales.
 Sam spotted a whale tail out of the water. This magnificent tail was sitting above the surface, not moving. It was the longest fluke I had ever seen.
Sam mentioned that he thought it might be a pregnant female because they tend to spend lots of time hanging vertically in the water with their tails up in the air. He was right.

She was floating vertically in the water column with up to a meter of her tail above the surface. Under the water, she was fairly motionless and could not care less that we were around. I looked at her just after we were in the water and saw a reasonably sized bump do a ripple or wave across her white belly. I was so excited that I saw the baby in her belly move. Her baby was big and was obviously moving around. It was incredible!!!

Whale skin
(found floating in the water)

Sam found some whale skin floating in the water and we were all able to touch it. I was surprised at how smooth the skin was. It was like a textured paper with ridges but still smooth.

She had an escort with her. He was in the vicinity (normally below), leaving her space but staying with her. I was fascinated by both the male and female floating vertically in the water column. To take a breath she would float up and then down without any effort expended. I could not even see how the female was moving (which made orientating myself in the water a bit interesting). She would come up, take a breath, and then head down straight vertical again. I expected more of the arching dive...this was not arching, it was straight vertical.  Impressive!!


Humpbacks are known for being playful. I think they like to have fun. Another amazing thing that I saw was how they came up for air. Sometime it was exactly as expected with the animal surfacing, taking a breath, and diving with a soft arch back down below. However, I also saw them surface with their belly towards the surface of the water...a completely unexpected orientation (pictured left). They would then flip upright to take their breath. I think they enjoy life.

The female was completely vertical for the majority of our time with her. She moved up and down in the water column effortlessly. Sometimes her tail was completely out of the water and sometimes she would drift down so deep that we could barely make out her white colored tail. I saw a whole lot of whale butt. After 45 minutes or so, they swam away. They relocated fairly close, but we decided to give them their space. We thanked them for sharing their morning with us, and we waved goodbye.

Lunch was on a beautiful spit beach on Nuku Island (more egg sandwiches...still weird). The beach was one of those perfect iconic South Pacific spots. The dark blue water that transitioned to turquoise and became almost completely clear up to a white sand beach fringing the green, palm tree lined island vegetation. We each grabbed a coconut that had fallen from a palm tree to sit on and positioned it in the shade of the tree. It was so pretty.

After lunch we headed out again.

This was our day to see whale tails in the air!
Sam spotted 2 whale spouts and a lot of splashing. It did not take long before we were all able to see the scarred tail in the air. A humpback whale's fluke is unique, like a fingerprint. The fluke is one way individuals can be identified. She must have been quite old to have so many scars on her tail.

Based on the large and small water spouts, we could tell that we had found a mom and calf. They were not moving. Sam called us in the water almost immediately. The mom was big. She was sleeping. I mean she was ASLEEP....completely dead to the world. Her calf was much larger than the one we had seen the day before. He was pretty big but he did not look big when he swam next to his mom. She was MASSIVE.

Before we arrived, the calf had been playing around, jumping and splashing. He became shy as soon as we were in the water. He did not like us. He would come out and swim around a little bit but was more comfortable using his mom's body as a shield...putting her large mass between him and us. He would then peak out from under his mom. It was so cute. I could picture any toddler acting the same way.

Since she was asleep, we were able to take the time to really look at her (and her calf when he would swim around) and see the details of these beautiful animals. Her pectoral fins were long and scalloped along the front and smooth along the back. They were almost outlined in white. Barnacles were growing on her fin and tail. I guess you would not notice a hitchhiker if you had that much surface area.

Speaking of hitchhikers, the whales had an entire ecosystem of fish living under and around them. Some of these fish, mostly remora, were up to several feet long. Remora are designed to attach to large pelagic animals to "hitch a ride" with a flattened part on the top of their head to help suction onto another animal. Remoras use the large animals for transport and protection. They eat parasites (usually copepods), sloughed off skin and scraps. I just did not expect the large fish population swimming with only two whales.

Humpbacks have distinctive bumps on top of their head and around their mouth. Apparently these nodules, called tubercles, contain one hair follicle. So like humans, they also have bearded faces. I love the bumpy face. It is another unique feature to this majestic animal.

Her face was elongated with the hinge of her mouth so much further back than expected. This provides the ability to open extremely wide to take in a large volume when feeding. Humpbacks are filter feeders. Their grooved belly is designed to expand. Humpbacks can up to double their size due to their water intake during feeding. The water is then expelled through plates of baleen. The krill and small fish are caught in the baleen as the water passes through, acting as a rake to collect all of the good stuff. The suction must be incredible when they open that huge mouth.

She was so beautiful to watch. We were told to stay up near the mom's face so that if she woke up she would be able to see us. We did not want her to panic or think that we posed any threat to her calf. Forty tons of startled whale would be a bad thing. While sleeping, she was absolutely still. When she needed to take a breath she would slowly float to the surface. After her breath, she would float back down and just hang in the water. So peaceful.


By contrast, the little calf became less shy and more and more insistent that his mom wake up. He began nudging her. Then he would swim up and slap the surface. He was doing everything he could do to wake her up. He swam around and around. He started slapping the top of the water. His tail fluke was completely out of the air on several tail slaps (pictured right). He started bumping into her. "MOM!" Then he started ramming into her. At first he was poking her in the side and then in progressively more and more annoying places (like her eye). I could hear him saying "mom", "Mom!", "Moooommmmm...wake up!" in that whiny toddler voice.

Whale between me and the boat

After we had been in the water with her for over an hour, she finally woke up. She was extremely calm...probably groggy after that deep of a sleep. Again I could almost hear her say "what...huh?" in a very tired voice. They swam off with no particular urgency. The calf seemed happier. We picked our heads out of the water and smiled at each other. WOW! Back on the boat, we spotted them about 50 feet from where we were swimming with them. Apparently, mom moved just enough to appease her calf and then decided that nap time was not over.

Moon Rise in Vava'u Tonga

What a great day in the water! Yea to tales in the air and hours of entertainment with magnificent animals.

It felt wonderful to go back and have a warm shower. The moon rise that night was fantastic.
What a dream. What a day!

How could the next day top this???