9896 TRAVELTRAVEL ++ LEISURE / JANUARY 2017LEISURE / JANUARY 2017
And yet there I was, fl oating in the open ocean, peering down through a
snorkel mask into water hundreds of feet deep. Above the surface there was
wind and swell, blowing spray, gray sky. In the distance were the limestone
cliff s and tousled coconut palms of Vava’u, an archipelago of 61 islands
within the Kingdom of Tonga, itself a collection of 176 islands scattered
across approximately 260,000 square miles of the South Pacifi c. Beneath
the surface, there was stillness, vastness, silence. There was the saturated
cobalt blueness of the Tongan waters, and there was a mother humpback
whale 50 feet below, resting with her calf tucked under her.
The sight was both familiar and alien. I’d seen countless humpbacks on
television and IMAX screens, gazed up at life-size replicas hanging from
the ceilings of natural-history museums, even caught glimpses of fl ukes and
fi ns from whale-watching boats. But now I was fl oating above a 40-ton, 50-foot-
long animal with a beating heart and a mind full of unfathomable instincts and
impulses. The white edges of her pectoral fi ns and fl uke glowed bright aqua.
The rest of her was a massive charcoal shadow, suspended in space.
Nisi Tongia, a local guide who works for New Zealand–based WhaleSwim
Adventures, gripped my wet-suited upper arm, anchoring me against the
current. We formed a loose cluster with three other swimmers—fi ve of us in
all, the maximum number legally allowed in the water so as to avoid crowding
the whale. Because scuba diving with the whales is not permitted, we had only
snorkels and fi ns.
This was our fi rst of seven days in the water with WhaleSwim Adventures,
a tour operator that has led expeditions in Tonga since 1999 and recently
expanded to Tahiti (humpbacks) and Sri Lanka (blue and sperm whales).
The company off ers only multi-day trips, a policy intended to give swimmers
time to get used to the whales and to avoid pressuring guides into forcing
encounters. Sometimes, though, while sitting on the boat’s swim platform,
my fi ns dipping in and out of the wake as I craned around to see columns of
vapour sent up by exhaling whales, I did fi nd myself caught up in a certain
hectic energy, an Ahab-like thrill of pursuit. The challenge of fi nding whales
is part of what makes encountering them meaningful, but because the quest
can be so unpredictable (big ocean, swift wild animals), swimming with these
creatures is an activity I can’t recommend for control freaks.
On this drop, everything was going according to plan. A pale face, small
by whale standards and studded with the wartlike tubercles characteristic of
humpbacks, peeked out from under the cow’s chin. We fl oated, waiting.
After a moment the calf emerged and glided upward, nose to the light, eye
trained on us, inspecting. A clutch of remoras, or suckerfi sh, clung to his
underside, and his white belly was grooved with expandable ventral pleats
that would, in adulthood, help him fi lter up to one and a half tons of krill a
day. For now, he was consuming only milk, while his mother ate nothing.
The warm, protected Tongan waters provide safety during the whales’a
birthing and breeding season, but no
sustenance. In a few weeks, this pair
would turn south, toward their
Antarctic feeding grounds.
The calf took a breath, rolled
languidly onto his side, and started
wiggle-swimming in our direction.
This was what I’d come for. This
was an experience I’d wanted so badly
that I’d put aside my trepidation about
Big Blue and embarked on a 5,000-
mile pilgrimage that could well have
ended up becoming an exercise in
terror management.
Just a few feet from me, the calf
rolled onto his back, opening his
knobby pectoral fi ns wide. We made
eye contact: a six-week-old, 18-foot-
long marine mammal and a woman
from California. What could he have
made of me? His beauty thrilled me
almost to the point of pain.
His mother ascended, surfacing to
breathe. At such close range, her size
was overwhelming, a moving wall of
whale, her skin encrusted here and
there with barnacles. Her body
language was relaxed, tail and fl ippers
low, but she kept her eye fi xed on the
gaggle of snorkeled paparazzi
extending GoPros toward her hammy,
curious baby, who was now turning a
backward somersault. In the water,
whales’ conversation is often audible,
and after a few whistles passed
between the pair, they swam away,
unhurried, their oscillating fl ukes
vanishing into the blue.
“Okay,” Nisi said, smiling broadly
below his mask as we all popped up
among the waves, fi ve pinheads atop a
dark and choppy sea. “We go back to
the boat, yeah?”confession: I’ve always been afraid of deep
water. Like most phobias, mine isn’t entirely
rational. It’s not about drowning, exactly, or
being eaten by a sharp-toothed creature,
although that wouldn’t be ideal. It’s more about
not knowing what’s below me, about darkness
and emptiness, and my own insignificance.