swimming with the whales
Today is my birthday. I’m 39 and I’m in Vava’u, a beautiful group of islands to the north of Tonga and I’m a little shitting-myself because today I plan to go swimming with whales.
Like in the middle of the ocean.
I have to admit, I think I’m subconsciously welcoming any reasons for my plans to get derailed. Perhaps I will literally miss the boat. Maybe I just don’t need to go. I mean, the ocean really is a whale’s territory right? Fuck. Perhaps the weather will be bad and we can’t go out. But no, it’s a gloriously clear and sunny day and every person we encounter tells us that there are whales everywhere. So… its happening.
I arrive at the dock, get suited up for a wetsuit and flippers. There are 3 others coming along, as well as our guide and the boat driver. It’s a small boat and I feel a bit more relaxed when I discover that the others have all swum with the whales before. Numerous times. They tell me its addictive and intoxicating and surreal. They look like enthusiastic junkies. All I can concentrate on is the butterflies in my stomach.
Vava’u is stunning. Massive looming islands with dramatic sheer cliff-faces drop deep into the sapphire ocean. The boat weaves around them and we pass giant flippers and humpbacks as whales breach and playfully dance around the deep waters. I grab my camera to take a photo before I realise perhaps I should save the battery for when I’m like IN the water… swimming next to them. I think I pee a little.
We head further south about 10 kilometres and here we start to pass some seriously beautiful islands. Eua’kafa and Eua’Iki set the backdrop for Robinson Crusoe or Blue Lagoon. Dense jungle spills onto soft white sand that meets translucent aquamarine water. The stuff of freakin dreams. We pass the islands and veer around to a smaller island, Leleleka and the boat slows, gradually to a halt and we are told by our guide that there are whales here and we are going to don our fins and jump on in to this BIG BLUE and paddle around with these enormous mammals.
Holy shit my heart is racing.
But before I know it, I’m suited up and one of the very first into the ocean. We are quite some distance from where they are and we all, very silently, trail behind the guide towards them.
I’m bordering on hyperventilation and my breathing sounds SO loud under here. I’m pretty sure everyone can hear me breathing. The visibility is not as clear as I had imagined it would be, but instead everything is a brilliant cloudy azure.
The guide turns to us and his fingers signal ‘slow’… and after a few more gentle kicks of our fins, we discover a huge mother whale and her baby calf directly in front of us.
My heart races and I kind of don’t know what to do with myself. I think my eyes are popping out of my head.
The mother is very still and perhaps she is asleep. The baby moves a little more and seems inquisitive of us but not enough to interrupt her playful mood.
Everything is slow w under here. Its like time stops. Incongruent to our human busy-bee lives where we cram so much in… under here its just like floating in space. There is no sound, no music, no discussion, no thought and no interaction.
There is only communion with nature.
My fear of sharks gradually eases (but doesn’t completely disappear) and I realise that I somehow feel shielded or protected by these whales. Like, perhaps in their presence, the sharks would be scared away. I cant see how that would be truth but this is my feeling and I am bobbing around in the ocean like fresh bait, so I run with the idea.
My breathing eventually regulates and this is where it starts to feel like an amazing underwater meditation. Nothing exists but breath, nature and me.
The distance from me to mama whale varies, but in all honesty, most of the time I could almost reach out and touch her if I wanted to. But I have no desire to touch her. Instead I just float around her massive body in complete and utter awe, listening to popping algae and my breath.
I ease back in distance from her, admirably watching her as she sleeps. I consider how precious day naps are for mothers… even when you are a mother whale you are still getting drilled by your baby. Its inescapable. Its now been hours since I’ve breastfed my baby and my breasts tingle under my wetsuit. Here I am under the pacific with another mammal who is full of milk and enjoying a rest from her baby, just like me. I notice how she is completely still, suspended in the blue, this deep meditation, this deep trust in spirit to hold her and to hold her baby. Its complete surrender and this is how she lives. Every moment of every day.
I’m not so close now, though I’m feeling more comfortable. And then… look down and then the most amazing sight another huge whale – vertically torpedo positioned – directly below me! And he has all the sun rays around him and I cant help but wonder what he is thinking, just bobbing around like an upright carrot, staring at these weird little pink things with funny long floppy feet. If he wanted to do an arty-breach-type-rocket-launch right now, I would get launched.
Floating in the ocean, it is all just so surreal. I cannot help but be completely mesmerised by these gigantic sentient beings. I feel so small but so embraced and protected at the same time. Is it truth or just a feeling? Out here floating on the blue, time stops and its like entry to a new world. Waves of vulnerability hit me every few minutes and churn my gut. Its so deep. Its so fucking huge. Its so unpredictable. And then I realise this is life. As much as we try to make sense of it, it really has no depth, width or rhythm, except perhaps the consistency of change. The water seems to offers a lot of sense, a lot of answers and I quietly contemplate whether this attributes to the wisdom of the whales. Are they so connected and so intelligent because they are simply constantly immersed in the wisdom of nature?
And then it hits me like a truck. I’m literally about to be sick. And I’m thinking this may not be the best place to empty my stomach (if sharks didn’t hear my deafening heartbeat earlier well surely they will now smell my spew from 4 kilometres away). I give it a few minutes and then as I turn to my guide, I see that he is already watching me. I think I’m a pale greenish brown colour. I realise my finger pads are wrinkled from being in the water for so long.
He asks if I want him to take me back to the boat, but I feel bad for him to leave the other three alone with the whales. I say I will be fine, but as I turn to swim for the boat, its fucking miles away. I consider that in this particular situation, my politeness may actually kill me. In this moment, a quiet surrender fills in where panic may have usually showed up. Instead, I breathe, take in the view around me and consider that if something does want to come up and eat me here in the deep dark blue, well maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad place to go…
But I make it back to the boat. And as the driver helps me up, I show my gratitude by power vomiting back into the ocean in front of him. He grimaces and I think he stifles a dry retch. The intoxicating stench of vomit sets off a chain of further spews, but it feels good and stabilising to my weird sensation of watery vertigo.
From the boat I watch the divers bobbing around with the whales and then it really hits me how massive these creatures are. Was I really just in the deep with them?
Something to my left catches my eye and I can see it is the mother and baby’s male escort heading towards them. His size is profound and as he passes a small island in the background his view is almost the same size! His pace quickens as he nears the mother, baby and divers… getting quicker and quicker and quicker…
BOOM.
He does an impressive side-breach-dive type move towards the mother and there seems to be much commotion. The boat starts up and we gradually move towards them as the divers all start swimming towards us.
I am wondering what it must have been like to be under the water with these peaceful (perhaps sleeping) whales, and to have another huge whale come and loudly gatecrash a very serene party?
The other divers pull themselves onto the boat and they are all pale, giggling nervously and shivering profusely. They definitely look like junkies who have just had a fix.
On the way back, the boat ducks and weaves through some of the clearest water I have ever seen. I don’t feel like engaging in conversation in any way, only processing the few thoughts I’m having. I feel immersed in gratitude and reverence and overwhelmed by the magnitude of swimming with these beautiful giant creatures.
The driver asks if we want to stop at a cave on the way back for a dive. We all decline. Our adrenals are maxed and if they are feeling anything like me, they are going to want to let that experience linger lucidly in the forefront of their thoughts for as long as possible.
#swimming #whales #tonga #freediving #vavau #islandlife #pacificocean #timestops #ocean #sharks #breath #seasickness #breach