Whale Spotting

It took us two weeks to get from Fiji to Tonga, thanks to an uncooperative convergence zone stalled overhead, producing heavy gray clouds, buckets of rain, and high winds. We navigated southeasterly through Fiji looking for safe overnight anchorages and checking the forecast daily looking for a break. We also had the opportunity to read several good books, since the weather was so uninviting. Finally we got an opening and headed across the 300 mile stretch of ocean separating Fiji’s Lau Group from Vava’u in Tonga. It was a 30 hour passage ‘uphill’, hammering head on into the oncoming waves which made for an unpleasant ride, comparable to life inside a washing machine.

The Kingdom of Tonga, about 1300 nautical miles northeast of New Zealand, is composed of ‘groups’ of islands and the Vava’u Group is one of the more northerly. The main town of Neiafu offers the excellent Port of Refuge Harbor with facilities that include fuel, restaurants, a good market for local produce and handicrafts, a few shops, and a very few nice shops. We even have access to wifi again after a long dry spell! Currently it is the peak of cruising season in this part of the world and the harbor and anchorages are full of visiting yachts. One of the main draws is the arrival of hundreds of humpback whales that migrate here each year from the Antarctic to give birth, mate, and raise the babies until they are robust enough to survive the cold polar seas. The whales start to arrive in July and depart again in October, with numbers peaking in August and September.

Whale spotting involves scanning the empty sea for the blow (spout), the column of spray exhaled by the whales when they surface to breathe. Once we spot the blow and close in on them, we’ll often find the whales hanging out on the surface engaging in assorted activities. Humpback whales are the most athletic and exuberant of all whales and display a variety of behaviors – from spectacular breaching when the whales launch themselves, all 80 tons or so (double the weight of Avatar fully loaded), into the air and fall back into the water again with a commensurate titanic splash. Often they’ll breach 6 or 7 times in a row. They will also spyhop, poking their heads straight up out of the sea to take a look around;  tail-slap, smacking the surface of the water repeatedly with their tails; or flipper-slap, laying on their sides or backs and flailing their long (a third of the length of their bodies) pectoral fins against the sea surface. When they dive deep, they arch their backs like a cat and raise their tail flukes high out of the water. When they submerge fully they leave behind a ‘footprint’, a slick of smooth water on the ruffled surface of the sea. Humpbacks are also noted for their complex singing, and it adds an extra dimension to a scuba dive when we hear their distant song echoing through the water in concert with our air bubbles.  There are only about 20,000 humpbacks left worldwide today, the whaling industry having killed a quarter million of them in the 20th century up until 1983. They are now categorized as rare.

We got extremely lucky with our first whale encounter – coming across five individuals all traveling together. Best guess is that the group including a cow and calf, and three amorous suitors competing for her favor. One of the males was nearly all white with just a charcoal dorsal stripe. Humpbacks are usually black or dark gray with white underbellies. Individuals can be positively identified from the black and white markings on the underside of their tails, as unique as fingerprints. But a white-bodied one would be highly unusual. This group gave us a good show, and we suspect we may have actually witnessed (and photographed) a mating – but as none of us are whale experts, we can’t be sure.

The last week of our trip Mike and I are booked into Mounu Island Resort, operated by one of the founders of organized whale-watching in Tonga. Accompanied by a licensed operator and whale expert, we will actually able to swim and snorkel with the whales, an awe-inspiring experience. In the meantime we are contenting ourselves with whale-spotting, scuba diving, and exploring the beautiful islands and lagoons of Tonga’s Vava’u Group.