The Road Less Traveled : Swimming with the Whales

How do I describe swimming with the Humpback Whales? How can I possibly convey the sensation of floating within feet of the largest animals on the planet? Is it even possible to accurately portray their effortless grace, their playful antics, or their startlingly gentle demeanor? The answer – probably not, but I will do my best.

The adventure started on a stunning Thursday morning, one of those rare Tongan days where the weather is clear and the sun is out but it is not unbearably hot. Taking the pleasant weather for what I hoped as a foreshadowing of even better things to come, 4 other volunteers and I left the wharf at 7:30 in the morning on the hunt for whales. Driving out in the fastest boat I have traveled in since my arrival in Tonga, we made it out of the harbor and into the islands in the record time of only a few minutes. Trying to temper my excitement and knowing we may not see any whales for hours, I attempted to relax, sit back, and enjoy the view.

For three hours we motored around the islands with our two Tongan guides periodically stopping the boat to scan the horizon or listen to the radio for any sign of whales. After pretending to remain patient, we finally heard on the radio that another boat had sighted a mother and her calf swimming close to a nearby island. The boat began motoring in that direction, while the rest of us let out a collective sigh of relief. Yes, we have a sighting. This is real. We are actually going to swim with whales.

Well…at least eventually. The boat that found the whales first began to swim with them, so we watched from afar as groups of 4 – the maximum number of people allowed by law to swim with the whales at a time – took turns swimming with these gentle behemoths. Watching the tourists in the water and only being able to see the occasional backs of the whales as they breached the surface for a breath of fresh air was an incredible tease. We were chomping at the bit to get in the water and experience this closeness with the whales for ourselves.

Some time later it was our turn. In order to swim with the whales, the guides first try to determine where the whales are heading so that they can angle the boat in front of where the whales will be to allow us to be in the position to see them. The hope is that they will stay in relatively one place so you can spend several minutes with the whales, but if not you can at least see the whales for a few seconds as they swim by.

With an indescribable feeling of excitement and my heart rapidly beating inside my chest, I jumped into the beautiful turquoise water of the South Pacific. Following Sione, our Tongan guide, I swam behind him 20 yards until I saw the whales. I expected to be scared. I assumed that swimming in the open water only feet from such a colossally massive creature would be intimidating to say the least. From the moment my eyes made contact with the magnificent mother, however, every thought and fear disappeared from my mind. Time, as the cliché goes, literally stood still. Within feet of me, just below the surface of the water, I was swimming with a mother whale and her two-month-old baby hugging tightly to her side. The whales of course took no notice of us. Do we notice a solitary ant when we walk by one?

It was only a matter of seconds. The whales passed right by. Effortlessly gliding through the water without even a flick of the tale. Their size was massive. Even the calf was double our size. But from the moment I saw the whales, I understood their gentleness. The only emotion I could think of was calm. The whales were so tranquil, floating through the water without a thought in the world. I don’t believe in personifying animals, and I do not agree with allocating human emotions onto animals, but when I looked into the eyes of the mother whale I felt a profound sense of equanimity and tranquility. It was absolutely beautiful.

Describing the Humpback whales physically is almost as difficult as explaining the experience. The water in Tonga is so clear that the visibility is astounding. The first thing you notice is the size. Whales are absolutely humongous. Beyond that, there is not any incredible physical diversity among the species. They are mostly blue with a white underbelly, and bits of barnacles attached sporadically across their bodies. The body and tail are massive, with the face somewhat narrower, angling almost to point at the end into a constantly smiling mouth. To see the whales for yourself, you can see the picture below that one of the volunteers took with his underwater camera.

To reiterate, the first time I swam with the whales, it was only a matter of seconds. It was amazing, but they quickly swam past us and did not seem content to remain in one place like I selfishly desired. We all wanted more. The next few trips into the water were the same. A great, but a short sighting. After these initial trips, however, we finally struck gold. I jumped into the water, swimming towards where Sione beckoned me to go. When I arrived, the calf was only feet away from me, while the mother remained 20 feet below us, keeping a watchful eye on her calf. For whatever reason, this time the calf was in a playful mood. It swam towards us, looking directly into my eyes, and continued to play by darting in circles and jumping out of water right in front of us. The calf’s mood was infectious as it flipped back and forth around us. Rather than seconds, I was able to experience this playful atmosphere for maybe ten minutes. To accurately describe the experience it was like watching any newborn mammal, animal or human, playing around and discovering the world it inhabits for the first time. Except this animal was a whale, and even as a baby it is huge. This makes for one lovable but large child.

There was more to the day, with another swim with the whales, lunch on an island beach, a bit of snorkeling, and the beauty of seeing the whales breach the water including some playful jumps of the baby (one of which I captured below) and an incredible poster-worthy Free Willy type epic jump out of the water by the mother, but the experience when the calf was so close to me I was almost worried I would get hit by its darting tail was the true special experience I wanted to write about in this post.

Being so close to the whale and having the opportunity to swim with a mother and calf was a once in a lifetime experience that I unironically can’t wait to do again next year. I hope I did a somewhat decent job of explaining the unexplainable sensation of swimming with the whales. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. When you go on a Safari, you are somewhat removed from the animals. Sure there is no cage like at the zoo, but you are in a car with a local guide and a rifle between you and the animal. Even when scuba diving you feel more like you are entering into alien territory and are gazing at animals normally far smaller than yourself, except for the occasional shark. But whales, inhabiting a depth not far beneath the surface of the ocean and being mammals themselves, do not feel like the other. Swimming with them instead feels natural and soothing. It is not as much a viewer and the viewed but two mammals coexisting in a shared territory, swimming along. It is a sensation, fleeting but powerful, intense but ethereal, that makes you step inside of yourself and simply mouth the word, “Wow.”

Thank you all for reading. Please enjoy the photos of the whales below.