IN SUMMARY ...
The first week, a special Whaleman Foundation charter with prolific marine artist and charismatic whale-lover, Wyland, saw numerous remarkable snorkeling and surface encounters with humpbacks. (Look out for a television piece on the group's adventures next year.) Then, in our second week, late one balmy afternoon near Lofanga Island, we decided to leave a humpback mother and calf alone to go diving on some pinnacles instead. It was only a mediocre dive without the usual terraced gardens of perfect hard coral that is Tonga's underwater trademark. What a pity, we pondered, that we opted against following the pod of adult whales we'd spotted blowing at the surface near our site. But then...three giant forms loomed into view parting schools of fusiliers on the edge of the reef drop-off...oh my God...HUMPBACK WHALES!
THE WHOLE STORY ...
By Cat Holloway
Being there.
It's the reason we traveled halfway across the world to the tiny, remote Kingdom of Tonga with big dreams and high hopes of encountering humpback whales. And a fine reason it is! Being there is, of course, the only reason.
It would be easier maybe, to stay at home and watch the Discovery Channel. A closer view perhaps, in a coffee-table book of Talbot photographs. Just as interesting possibly, to read up on cetacean research in Scientific American. Cheaper certainly, to pay your Greenpeace membership and buy a "Save the Whales" bumper sticker.
But it's just not the same as being there.
So, on the day that three humpback whales swam among our group of scuba divers, all our effort felt rewarded. And as they danced and tumbled and played all around for that fantastic final half hour of the fading day, all the travel, expense, open sea and risk was suddenly, undeniably, worth it. And when they cruised up close so we could look deep into their ancient eyes, we were there. Our very own unbeatable, irreplaceable, incredible moment. The story to tell over and over about being in the right place, at the right time, with the right whales - and with the right spirit. A story mostly about luck, but also about patience and perseverance.
Our group was a broad mix of new and very experienced divers, some having been in the water on snorkel with humpbacks several times before. We'd had a fairly good day among whales and the weather was perfect. Although there had been many exciting snorkeling encounters in just two days, they were mostly fairly fleeting and somewhat frustrating. Everyone was hungry for more! But we all believed that SCUBA diving with whales was largely a waste of time and effort. Since humpbacks use bubbles as a threat display, we deduced that our exhaust would surely frighten them. Also, the logistics and danger of putting several divers out "blind" into deep open ocean was daunting. To keep track of the whale we would have to follow it back to or near the surface. It's a whole lot easier to track it from above the water line. Snorkeling, we agreed, was the only way to get close.
With dusk threatening. NAI'A broke off from a mother calf pod we'd been following. They seemed uninterested in us so we chose to give them some peace in favor of a pretty evening anchorage and a potentially hot dive on two pinnacles close by. Three dedicated passengers who were aboard NAI'A flying the flag for the Explorers Club, opted to head out to record whale song with me. We had two fancy hydrophones and a mandate to bring back this Tonga tribe's unique 1998 signature "song" to scientists in the US and New Zealand. But neither our higher scientific purpose, nor two wildly breaching whales nearby were consolation for the fact that we drew the short straw that day.
Underwater, Rob Barrel was swimming madly around the site appraising it for future visits and looking for top spots on the reef. Unimpressed, he turned to face the blue water, hoping for a glimpse of a giant. There were whales around right as the divers were gearing up. But everyone had voted to leave them be and have a dive instead.
Staring out, Barrel thought it was just his vivid imagination when two whales materialized out of the gloom and passed right in front of him and his video camera for maybe two minutes before disappearing. But no, it really happened. The whales were so close they'd parted a school of fusiliers over the reef with their mammoth pectoral "wings". And he got it on video! Blissed out by his brief rendezvous and thinking he could now die a happy man, Barrel, shot off to continue exploring the site and find the other divers. Finally he found them all hovering off the edge of the drop-off staring out in to the blue. At what? Three humpback whales - cavorting among the divers!
Proving untrue all the theories about SCUBA bubbles and humpbacks being mutually exclusive, three female whales danced and tumbled and played among nine heavy breathing divers for 25 minutes! They also posed for the cameras and taunted the dumbfounded divers close enough to reach out and touch - were they not been either paralyzed with awe and surprise or busy shooting the images and video of a lifetime! It fulfilled wildest dreams. It made grown men cry. But since I wasn't there for the dive, it broke my heart.
I lived the thrill of the encounter vicariously on NAI'A's dive deck amid a cacophony of laughter and babble as everyone retold their own version of the tale. Some yelled "Awesome!" Some managed only to shake their heads in disbelief and grin inanely. One threw her arms in the air declaring it "Better than sex!" (She can't be doing it right, I thought privately. Until, that is, I also got to scuba dive with whales myself two days later.)
Cool and calm in a manner modern teenagers have mastered, Tess, 15-years-old and diving with her father, David, seemed in her inexperience only vaguely aware how remarkable her encounter was. But her eyes fairly gleamed as she eloquently recounted the beauty of being surrounded by giant humpbacks who curled and rolled around her rising bubbles.
"So, a pretty good dive then?" I cooed enviously.
"Oh yeah, I forgot!" she suddenly screamed. "We saw a white tip shark too!"
Now, anyone who can still get excited about spotting small reef sharks after somersaulting with giant whales under a setting sun is a friend of mine!
For professional photographer, Darryl Torckler, the memory was bittersweet.
"The most crazy thing," he enthused, "was that the whales had to surface for air while we divers stayed below them!"
A dedicated Kiwi photographer, Darryl has spent each winter for the best part of a decade among Tonga's humpbacks waiting for the shot of a lifetime. Unlike many of his equally passionate and driven peers, Torckler steers away from the ‘chase and intercept' method of getting close to whales, preferring to wait until the whales come to him. He believes, as we at NAI'A do, that the very best photos and encounters happen by working with the whales and not against them. Torckler has custom-designed and rigged his "pole-cam" to shoot (from a polite distance on the surface) pictures of humpbacks "acting naturally" without the intrusion or influence of swimming with the whales. His consideration and technical expertise have achieved some intimate glimpses of humpbacks, especially mothers and calves, with their defenses down. Using a SLR camera housed with a small security video camera, he sees what's happening below him from inside what looks like virtual reality goggles. He steers the camera accordingly panning and tilting - and fires off shots from a remote shutter release system near the top of the pole.
If anyone deserved great shots of humpbacks, Torckler did. But in the poor light that fateful afternoon on this lackluster reef, he instead shot off two entire films as a series of varying exposures of coral for use in an instructional underwater photography slide show. After capturing 72 frames that perfectly depicted what NOT to do, Torckler turned around and saw three humpback whales swimming straight for him! Once the shock and glee had passed, bitter disappointment set in.
"I thought about coming up, going back to NAI'A and changing film. But I never really expected the whales to stay for so long!"
"And there was a chance the dinghy might frighten them away. I just gave in and enjoyed the moment. What else could I do? It was incredible."
I imagined Darryl holding his empty camera up anyway, composing the shots as the whales posed all around him and fantasizing about releasing that impotent shutter. Torckler's Torture, I dubbed that site. And I begged King Neptune for another chance!
For Rob Barrel, owner and cruise director of NAI'A, it was the opportunity he'd waited 20 years for. To get this close to humpbacks with his ever-present video rig, was inspiration for building this ship and the aim behind the enthusiasm he shares with his clients. Barrel shot truly magnificent scenes on video but experienced the emotion of the encounter later.
"I was totally focused on the camera at the time, trying to keep track of all three whales and make the most of the afternoon light," Barrel explains.
"I knew this was my chance to get some great footage. This was no ordinary encounter.It wasn't until later after I played the scenes back that I felt the ecstasy and amazement."
"It made everything we've ever done to get here completely worthwhile!
Friend and fellow videographer on the dive, Derry Kabcenell, articulated the experience best.
"Watching whales on snorkel or from the surface was like reading only pages 7, 17 and 70 of a great novel. I always felt like I was missing something."
"But from underwater, I felt like I was reading the whole book for the first time!"
Fortune, strategy or good karma? Who knows? But the fact is that happened again!
Two days later we spotted two whales very close to a shoal. It didn't take much to convince everyone to throw on their dive gear and hope for best. As I rolled off the skiff and stared out into the deep blue, I never remembered wanting anything so badly as I wanted to dive with those whales. I could hear their low moans and high trilling in the distance. They had to be close. But, which way? How far? The anticipation was spoiling my dive. I knew that the most special thing about that first spectacular encounter was that it was so completely unexpected. Nothing thrills like a surprise. My brain was bursting with new age philosophies about relinquishing the need to make something happen and just allowing it to be. But scuba diving with whales was all anyone had talked about for two days! No way was I going to turn my back on that possibility to go looking for burrowing gobies?
It was at that moment I spotted a gray reef shark cruising slowly below me. Its irresistible curling tail fin lured me down the slope in hot pursuit, my ears clearing like shots from a silenced pistol until I gave in at 125 feet to follow him only with my eyes. And as I watched that shark coast out into the distance off the far end of the reef, my head gradually lifted upwards until the most astounding image I've ever seen filled my view. A humpback whale hung motionless right in front of me. Fluke curved up and pecs splayed out below her massive rounded body. Her rostrum pointed up but her head turned towards me. I gazed heavily into her eye and at the folds of wrinkled flesh around it. I saw the telltale lump under her fluke that made her unmistakably female. And finally, as she began to roll away, I remembered I was carrying a camera!
Screaming through my reg and pointing wildly with every possible muscle I could muster to move, I couldn't see the others divers above me in the sun and didn't know if they could see the whale. I was deeper and further off the reef than them. But directly above me came another whale. Silhouetted, it looked like the huge hull of a ship bearing down on me! During a couple of breathtaking (literally) passes down and in front, I shot off a few frames. But I wasn't going to miss this moment for anything, especially so deep and dark and unlikely to make the cover of National Geographic. I pulled the viewfinder away and enjoyed those final precious moments as this whale swam head-on from underneath me, it's giant wings stretched out to steer, feathering into the current.
This time, I was there.
Also see www.underwatercolours.com/tonga
for another account of these phenomenal encounters and more beautiful
pictures of these amazing dives with humpbacks!
