Letter Home - Tonga - Part 5 - Whales and More !

The final part of Liz's recent letter home:

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In writing about our season in Tonga, I have kind of saved the best for the last -- when we think of Tonga, we will always think of our encounters with the Humpback Whales.  Vava'u seems to be the more well-known as a whale watching spot, but we saw more whales and fewer operators in the Ha'apai, making it our preferred location.  The whales migrate annually from their breeding grounds in Tonga to their feeding grounds off Antarctica.  Early in the season, we had to content ourselves with using binoculars, and seeing a few whales in the distance, but by mid-August we were seeing whales regularly.  A definite buzz set in once the word spread that 'the whales are here'.  Before long we were seeing them on every passage, and sometimes even beside the boat at anchor.  On a dark, moonless nighttime passage between Vava'u and Ha'apai, Max had whales broaching on both sides of Fluenta as he passed the outer reef of the Vava'u group in the dark - that was a little too close for comfort!

During our first visit to the Ha'apai, we were encouraged by our friends Jo & Rob on SY Double Trouble, experienced divers with many whale encounters behind them, that if we were going to swim with the whales, we should do it with Darren and Nina at Matafonua.  They raved about their weekly BBQ where they showed footage taken around the resort in their lagoon and during their eight years of whale guiding.  At one of these dinners, we learned that female humpback whales will not only come back to the same region to give birth, they will generally return to the same bay, and that they were waiting for a female to return to have her third calf since they have been there.  It didn't take much deliberation for us to go ahead and book, for mid-August.  We figured that this would give us time to explore Vava'u (it did) and return at the height of the whale season (we did), and we crossed our fingers that we would have good weather for the passages up and back and the day itself (check, check, and check).  

Baby napping

With our swim date booked weeks ahead, we expected to return to Ha'apai a few days beforehand, but we had westerly winds for much of the preceding week, so we ended up with a just-in-time operation and sailed to Matafonua the day before our trip (no stress there!).  On the bright side, our swim was on the clear, calm day that fell between the strong westerly and the usual south-easterlies; gone were the grey skies and wind chop, and in its place were blue skies and a sea as smooth as glass.  We couldn't have asked for better whale-watching conditions, and we even got a good omen for the day as we left Fluenta for the beach: Benjamin (at four years old) noticed that the clouds on the horizon were in the shape of whale tails!

The boats take a maximum of eight guests who swim in two groups of four with a guide (Benjamin was a bonus along for the ride).  Many visitors to Matafonua book multi-day excursions, so we were fortunate to go out with four others who had gotten to the point that they could be choosy in their swims, which gave us a little extra time in the water.  

Our friends in Vava'u had sometimes spent as much as 2 1/2 hours motoring around looking for whales, but we were hardly in the boat five minutes when we heard the words, "Group One, get ready".  We had already approached our first mom/calf pair!  I had assumed that our family would swim with two people in each group so there was always someone aboard with Benjamin, but we were all sent together, and the staff hung out with him during the swims.  Benjamin was pretty unperturbed to be left with strangers and pretty happy to be appointed as “Boat Captain's Assistant”, which is probably testament to his unusual upbringing :)  

By the end of the day, I had lost count of the number of pairs and the amount of time in the water (four pairs/five swims?) but suffice to say that despite the tropical temperatures, by the end of the last swim of the morning, I could hardly feel my fingers enough to operate my camera, and we were pretty happy that there was hot chocolate and coffee available aboard the boat.  As an aside, there are strictly enforced rules controlling the amount of time any given boat can spend near any one whale and they only swim with whales where the whales' behaviour indicates they are not disturbed by the presence of the boat or swimmers. One of the reasons we chose to swim with Darren and Nina at Matafonua was that we were impressed by their knowledge of, and compassion for, the whales that we heard about in their briefings and saw demonstrated in their operations.

It is one thing to see the massive bulk of a mother and calf from the the boat, but it was like entering another world to view them from underwater.  What really struck me was motherhood's universal sense of stillness and serenity; the huge whale hardly moved but she kept herself and her calf together as a unit.  The babies were more active, swimming around and under her body, and then eventually even napping.  They appeared completely unbothered by our presence and just kept doing what they were doing, which was being together as one 'mamatoto' (mom and baby) entity.  The calves were intrigued by the visitors, and would sometimes swim over to have a look at us.  Perhaps the best word to describe my sensation in the water was reverence: we were graced with a glimpse into one of nature's beautiful relationships, and time seemed to stand still.

The calf eye to eye with Liz

The day after our whale swim, I asked the kids to help me make a list of the words that came to mind when they thought back on it.  Their words also give this sense that we were blessed by our encounter:  wise, massive, magnificent, gentle, stubby, slow, silent (also cold, tiring, jellyfish ... I loved their honesty).

Johnathan watching the whales - and getting cold.

Following our official swim, we enjoyed watching whales from Fluenta on our excursions around the Ha'apai, which were generally prompted by a forecast for westerly winds. We took shelter by tucking into an opening in a reef structure just south of Uoleva, where the reef itself offered protection when the winds clocked around from N to SW, and the island beside us gave protection from the SE to the North.  It was rather surreal to be surrounded on three sides by reef, with whales swimming just beyond us in the shallow waters close by; when we approached the reef, a calf who had been resting at the surface breached several times before following its mother to meander away.  The westerly shift was very light, and we woke the following morning as if we were anchored in a quiet pond; there was hardly a ripple on the water. Even while travelling cautiously and maintaining proper distances, we enjoyed the show put on by the whales :)

During a few days of calm, we anchored at Ofolanga, an island that is really only accessible during unusual weather: it is open to the trade winds, but protected from the north.  This was one of our most special spots, as we had whales swim to within a boatlength of Fluenta while we were at anchor.  The island is famous for a rock wall and caves that divers love to visit, on the western edge of the fringing reef, but there was some kind of westerly swell running, so Max did a quick recce, but the kids and I stayed in the dinghy.  We had also hoped to snorkel in a sheltered are at the NW of the lagoon (where apparently it is feasible to anchor a yacht, but we thought it was a bit small), but we ended up just anchoring the dinghy and having a picnic.  On our way back to Fluenta, we kept our eyes peeled for whales, as we had already seen at least two pairs and escorts in the vicinity; at one point we had to divert because a pair was a few boatlengths in front of us!  We hadn't seen any escorts when we went swimming with Matafonua, but in this case, even as we were drifting back in the dinghy, the large male escort swam under the dingy and surfaced beside the mom and calf to make sure we knew we were in his territory.   

A calf swims over to see us.

and the 40'+ male escort tells us we are too close by swimming very close under the dingy.

This anchorage also offered the opportunity to listen to whalesong.  Max regularly comes back from spearfishing with descriptions of the constant sonic accompaniment as soon as he was a few feet under water, and one time he even heard whales while working on the engine compartment in Mexico, but I hadn't ever heard it.  At Foa, we were behind a reef, but at Ofolanga and Nukupele, we were in a more open area, and I was optimistic.  Sure enough, when I showed the kids the old trick of putting a glass to a wall to eavesdrop (in this case, putting it to the hull on the wooden floor or directly against a bilge compartment), and we closed off one ear, we could faintly hear the ghostly sounds of the male whales singing (apparently, female whales don't sing, but males all sing songs that are recognizable around the world).  The next day, Max and I were in the RHIB, and the aluminum hull acted as some kind of tuning fork, because we could hear whalesong over the sound of the engine!  That evening, we didn't need a drinking glass: we could hear the whales as we stood on the aft deck in the moonlight.  It was a little like hearing sounds in a dream, as none of us could replicate the song afterwards, but the closest description I could come up with was that it sounded like someone playing a glissando on a cello - it was like a haunting string melody.  Throughout the day, we could look up from the boat and see the mom and calf in the near distance, slowly making their way from one side of our island to the other.

Listening for whalesong.

Another way to hear whalesong is to swim for it: we couldn't hear the sounds from the surface while we were snorkelling, but when we dove down, it was like a switch turned on and at a certain depth we were immersed in sound.  On our return from our non-snorkelling picnic trip, we actually took turns pulling ourselves down our anchor chain to listen.  Sure enough, at about six feet, the speakers turned on.  Since we were going down the line hand over hand without weight belts to about 15 ft of depth, we had great fun shooting out of the water and breaching as we let go.  We couldn't see the whales as we swam near the boat, so it was quite surreal to hear them.  Johnathan soon tired of hanging onto the anchor chain to hear the whales, so he came up with another trick - he would swim under the hull and 'stand' on the bottom of the rudder.

Standing on rudder.

Our final whale encounter was back where we had started: we anchored off Foa for two nights to say good by to Darren, Nina, and their kids, and on the Sunday morning, the mom and calf with whom we had first swum spent about an hour gently circling our boat.  Just when I thought they couldn't get any closer, the mom led the calf right in front of our bow, so close that it looked like her fins were touching our anchor chain!  Of course, that was the moment that the camera battery died.  We had spent all season looking for whales, and now they were coming to us :)  When we left the next morning to return to Vava'u and then go onwards to Fiji, it felt like we had really experienced the whales that we had come to Tonga to see.

A mum and calf swam around Fluenta for about an hour.  At one point we thought they were going to run into our anchor chain.

You will see photos of various anchorages as we collate and post them, but for the most part, we spent long stretches of time at each location in the Ha'apai, and moved around every few days in Vava'u.  

You will note that the one thing I haven't mentioned about visiting Tonga is visiting Tongans.  We found that we were either not anchored in front of villages, or if we were we were amongst large groups of boats passing through for brief visits, so we generally kept to ourselves.  When we meet people, we prefer it to be meaningful for all of us, and we don't find that we enjoy the whistle-stop tours as much.  We are hoping to meet more local people when we head north from Fiji in November.  In the meantime, we enjoyed the ladies we met at the market in Neiafu (who by the end of our Tonga season recognized us with a smile when we come for our provisions), as well as the various local folks who were working at Matafonua and Sandy Beaches.  It was a bit of an unusual season from that perspective, but with so many yachts in Tonga, it didn't seem that it would make a difference for the villagers to meet 'one more boat'.  From that perspective, I am actually looking forward to getting back off the beaten path and heading north!

Despite our lack of time visiting Tongan villages, we did take in a couple of Tongan feasts.  At the first, in Vava'u, at the "Matatongan Feast" we were surprised to look up shortly after anchoring to see our field of view taken up by a 285 foot sailboat, navy blue with a turquoise stripe.  We had been joined in the anchorage by SV Aquijo (the largest high performance ketch in the world), and were joined at the feast by the owners and 15 of their crew, along with a single hander from the US.  We had a delightful evening at the feast, not least because the crew and owners were so interesting to talk to.  The village offered a traditional menu, as well as a dancing performance by the young children from their Sunday School.  I was glad to meet some of them and learn about their school system.  

On our return to the Ha'apai, we were blown away by the quality of the dancing performance offered at Sandy Beaches by the local village.  The feasting season had started during our absence, and each Friday night, following a traditional meal at the resort, a large group of teenagers from the local high school, as well as their exuberant mothers and several teachers, came to offer a performance of traditional stories and dances.  I was especially heartened to hear that even though the mothers mostly came from a generation that felt they had lost their dances, when one teacher took it upon himself to teach the students to dance and make the traditional costumes, both the mothers and the teenagers were resurrecting their traditions.  I am not sure who had more fun that night - the dancers or the audience - as we were invited to stick dollar bills to the coconut-oiled skin of the dancers, and the whole audience got in on the act.  What a delight!  Even through we elected not to visit Samoa, in order to extend our stay in Tonga, the teacher assured us that we had had a taste of Samoan culture, as several of the dances are shared (and there was some rivalry as to where they had actually originated).  It was fun to get a taste of both countries' cultures in one evening's festivities :)

Our season in Tonga offered a nice balance of time alone as a family, time with other people, kiting and whales. It was fun for the kids to learn to kite alongside their new friends, and it was extraordinary to have the opportunity to spend so much time in proximity to the humpback whales. For this I will be forever grateful.

For now, big hugs and much love from all of us aboard Fluenta,

Elizabeth