Tuesday, 5 August (in USA)
Wednesday, 6 August (in TONGA)
Today I had a close encounter of the whale kind. Words cannot describe, nor photographs portray, how emotionally moving this experience is.
As I boarded the boat at 10 a.m. today, David said hello and introduced me to Ann & Nicky Carmichael and Juliet (no last name). He told me that the day after I left Hakula Lodge, they had a swim with the whales and that Ann & Nicky swam with them yesterday.
I said "Oh, man DON'T EVEN tell me that!" Then he said "Neal, I think this is going to be your lucky day. I try VERY HARD for you to swim with whales."
So we set out south, in search of whales. After about an hour, Ann did spot a solo whale on the surface, but he was sounding and stayed down about 14 minutes. Then came up - took two breaths and sounded, stayed down for about 14 minutes.
During this time Veni dropped the hydrophones [into the water] and we heard singing. Vini thought the whale was only 6 to 11 meters under water (18-33'). He put David in the water to see if he could spot the whale; no luck. The whale came up and went down again; at this time, Veni felt we should look for a different whale.
On the radio he heard about two whales on the surface, so we went to check them out.
A whale was spy-hopping right next to that boat. The rules state that the first boat to spot & interact with whales has "dibs" for an hour and a half. So we motored on, still looking.
First view of the whale.
OMG - it's diving right beneath me!
After about 15 minutes the boat radioed that we could approach and have ONE swim. So we did. It was amazing. It was a whale calf and it swam RIGHT UNDERNEATH ME . . . so close it was hard to take photos. I shot many photos and made some video, not knowing if Iąd ever get a chance like this again. So after too short of time we had to get back on the boat.
Whale rolls on its back
We watched from a distance as the whale continued to cavort around their boat . . . . Then, suddenly, he moved over to our boat. This made the whale "ours" and so once more into the water! To paraphrase Jimmy Buffet, I had "Whales to the Left, Whales to the Right, Left, Right. Left, Right." Underneath. Spy-hopping. The whale just kept getting closer & closer.
Couldn't fit it all in one shot!
This with a wide-angle lens, BTW
This is what it looks like on the other end
Cruising'
Giving me "the hairy eyeball"
Makin' 'nother pass
|