2010
2010
The Whales of Vava’u
By: Ron Hunter of Dive Forster at Fisherman’s Wharf
Early August 2010 saw the first of our tour groups head off out of Sydney for Vava’u in Tonga. This was to be the ninth year in row we had travelled to Vava’u, to be enthralled by, what are without doubt, the greatest wildlife encounters available on our planet; the opportunity to swim with the Humpback Whales of Vava’u.
Each year, over the past nine years, the encounters with these gentle, cognizant giants seem to get better. After all these years, and for me personally, over one hundred days out with the Whales of Vava’u, I cannot put a tag of “the best Whale day ever” on any one of these days; every whale day is different, every day is special in its own unique way.
In 2010, as always, we had some days that just stood out as amongst the most memorable. Here are just a few of them.
We set out in the boat early one morning, and motored to a nearby calm bay against one of the myriad of islands of Vava’u; here we spotted a resting mother and her calf not far away from this island. We very slowly and carefully motored over to near them and observed them from around fifty metres away. The mother Humpback was not moving at all, just resting stationary of the surface with her calf swimming slowly around her massive head. She stayed like this for a few minutes before, trailed by her calf, diving down to rest between fifteen and twenty metres below the surface. Five of us entered the water very quietly and finned ever so slowly over to be above where the pair were resting. We then just floated there watching the calf being nursed by her mother. At first, around every seven minutes or so, the calf would slowly rise to the surface to breathe, a fine mist of mother’s milk streaming from her mouth as she rose, and on her way up she would check us out, eyeballing us, before swimming a few circles around us, then returning to her mum below.
Every twenty to twenty-one minutes the mother Humpback would follow her daughter up and then the two of them would just lie there next to us around five metres away. We were treated to this enthralling display of motherly love, and the bonding that the mother and her calf constantly reinforced by rubbing against each other. Once the mother Humpback became used to and quite comfortable with our presence, she then, after about ten minutes or so on the surface, and a number of deep breaths, would once again swim down and take up her position twenty metres below us.
The calf would then take this opportunity to closely inspect and interact with her new playthings (that’d be us), by swimming closely up to and by us to within only two metres away. The mother took these opportunities as respite from her exuberant youngster, basically using us as child minding services whilst she had a well deserved rest.
This pattern continued for the next three hours, during which time the whales never moved from their position by more than around fifty metres. When she did move a bit, we would take these opportunities to swap over our groups of five swimmers. It was nearing our lunchtime and the mother and calf suddenly and quickly dived further down from their resting position and then just as suddenly rocketed towards the surface and launched themselves into a full, clear of the water, double breach, coming down with an explosive bang only around thirty metres away from us. Wow! What an amazing finale to one of the most memorable and special days we could have ever hoped for.
“Every whale day is different; every day is special in its own unique way.” A few days later this analogy proved to be once again so true.
On this day we initially came upon a mother and calf resting quite close inshore, in an area where the water visibility was only around fifteen metres, not the thirty to fifty metre plus visibility that we had come to expect. Additionally the mother Humpback had an unusual, predominately black underside to her massive tale fluke; she was easily recognisable as one of the newer Humpback mothers in the archipelago that was not comfortable with her calf around boats. We left this pair with just a passing glance and proceeded out to sea into the “big blue”.
Our regular whale boat skipper, Moa, a delightful Tongan lady, was once again in command of the vessel we were onboard. Moa is without a doubt the most talented whale boat skipper I have ever had the pleasure to go out with. I am also a whale boat skipper, but Moa’s natural instinct and skills go far beyond anything I could ever hope to achieve.
Moa on this day felt that there would be numbers of whales out to the south of the archipelago, in or adjacent to the open ocean. Sea conditions were a bit choppy as the normal sou’east trade winds were blowing around 15 knots. Sure enough around twenty minutes into our exploration of this part of the ocean we spotted a number of “blows”, feathery sprays of water vapour that the Humpback’s produce as they exhale upon surfacing. One of the “blows” was substantially smaller than the other two indicating the presence of a calf with her mum and on this occasion there were so many other “adult blows” that we realised there were a number of male escorts (prospective suitors / mates) in attendance.
The mother Humpback and her calf were moving slowly along, obviously being followed by a number of adult male whales, we positioned the boat ahead of the whales and five of us slipped into the water, whilst the boat moved out of their path. Waiting in “the blue” for a pod of sexually excited 50 tonne whales to swim by you was something that we had rarely attempted before, but our years of experience around the Whales of Vava’u had convinced us that, due to their incredible agility and care when around people, we were not really at any great risk. Nevertheless it was with mounting excitement and some trepidation that we awaited the arrival of the pod. Anyway “if you’re not living life on the edge, then you’re taking up too much room”.
We first saw the mother Humpback swimming along with her calf positioned on top of her massive head, the calf was taking advantage of the slipstream from her mother to enable her to keep up. Immediately following the pair were five adult male suitors, these five whales were really competing for the opportunity to mate with the female, bumping and barging into each other, blowing huge blasts of bubbles under competitors, this behaviour was not at all trying to impress the female, but to intimidate their rivals. Being in the midst of this melee was exciting to say the least. All of the whales took great care to avoid any contact with our now, very compacted group of snorkellers, but we were still buffeted by the turbulence from their massive pectoral fins and their oh so powerful tails; a bit like being in a washing machine really, as they passed.
We had barely a few moments to regain our composure, when unexpectedly another six male whales burst on the scene, once more as before competing with each other, blowing bubbles, bumping and barging, and now additionally literally roaring each time they surfaced. Three hundred tonnes or so of testosterone charged Humpback Whales now surrounded our group, was it exciting? Well yes, and then some! And not one of us would have thought of missing this amazing wildlife event.
The pod of now thirteen whales, all six hundred tonnes of them, continued on their way, and we continued to take the opportunities to position ourselves close enough to get into the water in front of them, so that all of our group could experience the excitement of these amazing swim-by encounters. We followed them for around two hours continuing this pattern of dropping in front of the pod and having them boisterously swim by us again and again. Finally as we were all exhausted by the constant excitement and adrenalin rushes, we all returned to the boat and now followed beside the whales observing their behaviour which continued unchanged and unabated, until we left them another hour later to return to home port.
This was one very emotional day and filled with so many memories and “puckering” moments that none of us will ever forget.
Another day in 2010 really rates as one of the most amazing; the group on the boat on this day managed to swim with Humpback Whales, Spinner Dolphins, Pilot Whales and to top it off a 10-metre long Whale Shark, all in the one magical day!
