The trip of a lifetime. A childhood fantasy: photographing whales in the ocean face to face. 2020 a year of uncertainty, risk and regulation for travel among everyday living. 72 hours of hoping test results arrive in time and flights aren’t cancelled. The release of anxiety when they clear your boarding pass after checking documents and you board the plane. Months of planning and packing and prepping gear. And then you fly and you try and imagine what it will all feel like. And nothing can come close.
The first day in Tahiti is full of jittery anticipation, a quick dip in the pool and more travel by taxi and then ferry. Lee whistles the theme song to Jurassic park as we approach the island and he is not alone, we hear the passenger a few over doing the same. Coming up to Moorea via the ferry channel is like entering into another world. We are giddy and enraptured by the beauty and sense of adventure of it all. Green lush peaks sharply contrasting the infinite shades of blues below with whales breaching in the distance. This is really happening!!
Moorea instantly welcomes us with its friendly nature as we are greeted by our car rental escort and shuttled off to pick up our car and then to check out our digs for the week- a waterfront trio of open air bungalows,a bedroom, a living room and a kitchen. We pick up groceries and way too many pastries at the local market and settle in. Tomorrow we have time to adventure around the island and do some pre-excursion exploration of the island. (Moorea post coming soon!)
Even with our early, pre-sunrise start (thank you roosters), the next day passes by all too quickly as we soak in the sunshine, palms, sandy beaches and seemingly endless coral filled shores. We gorge ourselves on fresh pastries, pineapples and poisson cru – a Tahitian dish of raw fish in fresh coconut milk with cucumbers and tomatoes. Island life suits us well. Sun sets at roughly 6 pm so it’s lights-out early, especially with our 3 hour time change and day 1 of our 6 day expedition beginning in the morning.
Day 2 of the island’s convenient 4 am rooster alarms – may need thicker earplugs at this point – and we find some of the neighborhood dogs patrolling our shallow beach for a morning breakfast of fish. We suit up and gather our gear and head to the dock for pickup. Our initial group of 6 is down to 4 given the COVID regulations for different countries and we are anxious to meet the other two as well as our expedition lead, Caine Delacy, marine biologist PHD. I flood with the feelings of “ HEY! We are all about to do something super awesome and be spending a crap ton of time together so we will obviously be best friends but I don’t want to come off to strong and attack you with my hyper, maybe even a bit anxiety fueled, energy within the first five seconds of meeting” so I try and play cool and focus on calm interactions.
We all get acquainted and Caine introduces our boat captain and our local guide and they run us through the safety briefing and basics for the day. We head to the east end of the island and the chop is rough. We drive for almost an hour before our first sighting of two sleeping whales, the perfect scenario for our first encounter, Matthieu our guide shares. “Get ready!” the captain calls and everyone’s blood is pumping as we scramble to quickly gear up.
The next few minutes are a bit foggy, I’m sure our quiet glide into the water from the boat was more of a rushed plunge that first time. We all swim with nothing but deep blue surrounding us following the fins of our guide. The chop has us working hard for our progression and Lee motions he is a bit queasy. Everyone has been fighting off first-day jitters and sea sickness by staring at the horizon line for the boat ride over. Caine calls the area between the 2 islands where we are today “the soup” and I can see why. Lee contributes a bit to the chunkiness of it all but he is down current of us all so we don’t quite notice. Thankfully neither do any sharks.
When Matthieu signals us to stop motion and holds up his fist to signal he has located the whale to our captain I feel like I stop breathing. I can hear the waves crashing above us and my eyes are searching furiously through the dark blue abyss for them. What a rush! Dark blue everywhere, depths of roughly 1200 feet and two 30 ton creatures below us that I have yet to see. And then like… emerging from the shadows of the deep you see an inky form take shape and slowly grow as the first body floats up into view and crystallizes into a magnificent beautiful whale right before my eyes. I wish I could share with you the feeling of your heart just filling with emotions so full that you radiate with them. Something so massive, so camouflaged and yet so ethereally peaceful gliding up past you with their partner to spend a moment with us in their world. The excitement, the rush and the energy all wash off and you are blanketed with a feeling of peace, wonder and quiet.
The whales swim slowly up to take a breath and then twist and glide back to the deep for another sleep lasting 8- 30 minutes depending on the whale. They are quite regular with the sleep and breathe intervals so we get to experience them for a few rounds before swimming back to the boat.
This was one encounter of many that day and of even more the 5 days following. The specialness of that first whale encounter will stay with me always. Two sleeping whales swimming in the same water, breathing the same air, all so surreal.
The thing about the ocean that I love more than anything is how vast and full of life it is. You can be in one spot and 3 meters away can be a big beautiful Tiger shark greeting your fellow expedition mates and you have no clue she’s there. You can spot a whale coming up for air, jump in the water and swim for 45 minutes without locating him. The ocean is a good reminder of how small we really are in this world.
So when the stars align and you do get to witness something special it hits you all the harder because you know how lucky you need to be. That’s what happened for us Day 2: Jumanji Day.
Jumanji Day could not have thrown more at us if it tried! (I exaggerate obviously… but it was NEXT LEVEL). The peaceful calm of the encounters we had experienced the day prior flew out the window and turned our expectations on their head. It was another windy rough day on the water (Lee was prepared and took Dramamine today!) and we had been unsuccessfully trailing a singer and a few juveniles hoping to get a swim in when our captain started noticing action further out. A giant pod of dolphins to our right and even further out 3 whales breaching! Caine, our expedition lead, had just explained the day prior that a whale breaching exerts the equivalent energy as a human running a marathon. Now, that’s all good and fine when you are a whale eating on the regular, but the whales in Moorea are here to breed and give birth and subsequently they don’t get to eat for roughly 3-4 months as Moorea is not a feeding location.
Southern hemisphere humpbacks feed on Krill in the nutrient rich waters off Antarctica during the summer. The whales come to the shallower, warmer, safer (less predators) waters of the tropics for easier baby raising while their feeding grounds are more inhospitable in the depths of winter. The males follow the females up here with the hopes of a bit of romance. So seeing this breaching behavior was a treat in itself, but as we watched the horizon longer, we noticed not only were there humpbacks but pilot whales too.
We zip over to get in range and our captain positions us down current, right in their line of travel. The whales are moving quickly, everyone on the boat is buzzing, and we know our timing has to be spot on to get this right. We gear up and the train is almost to the station. Everyone jumps in and within seconds 3 humpbacks, then 50+ pilot whales, then 4 more humpbacks!!
Then we see the lurking oceanic white tips, parata as the locals call them, flanking the herd of pilot whales. I am flooded with adrenaline, fascination and awe. Even as we are forced to turn our focus and attention to the sharks and safely recede our group from the water, we are buzzing with disbelief.
We sit on the boat, floating along, watching them swim off from the above as we break for lunch. Sandwiches are shoved in mouths and bodies are heaving with the breath and nutrient refuel. We play music for the first time on the trip and we are all smiling ear to ear. And just like that, the wales are back and putting on a show for us right next to the boat. They are dancing and playing around the boat and watching us from below. They seem as interested in us as we are in them. Humpback whales truly are such intelligent, emotive creatures.
6 days in the water with whales sounds like a lot and trust me it felt like a lot, but it was entirely not enough. Leaving the island I could only think about how I needed more time, more experiences with these beautiful creatures. More unknown surprises we would experience each time we slipped off the boat into the water. I want to go back, I want to still be there and I will carry those moments with me in my heart forever.
If you would like to see more photos check out Caine Delacy and our friends from the trip Evan, Alex and Moorea Ocean Adventures.