Snorkeling and photography with the gentle giants of Tonga
The Kingdom of Tonga, an archipelago in the South Pacific with a real king (George Tupou V), is an autumn home for humpback whales, which come to Tonga’s warm waters from Antarctica to breed, give birth, and care for their newborn calves. We choose to join them at their tropical residence, because, wouldn’t you?
In Tonga, we’re based on one of the fringe reefs of the Vava’u Island group, the very definition of island paradise, with luxury accommodations on the rustic side, white sand beaches, tropical forests, and crystal clear waters boasting 100 ft visibility. Which is good, because there’s a lot to see.
Free diving among the humpbacks, you’ll witness intimate parental humpback moments between mother and calf. The big humpback bulls, on the other hand, are busy trying to impress each other (and perhaps a lady humpback or two), with their tail-slapping and breaching. That’s a pretty good trick for anything weighing 40 tons, leaping completely out of the water, and falling back with the greatest of all cannonball-dive splashes. The young males observe all this and go off to practice being macho.
Something else humpbacks practice is their singing. If you’re a musician yourself, you’ll understand. The humpback song is not inborn, they have to learn it from each other. Their songs change over time, as they pick up riffs from other humpbacks and, and, just like all us guys who ever joined a rock band, the boy whale with the best song gets the girl. It seems the female humpback admires a well-composed song, the more complex the better.
So these whales have a lot to show us, and you’ll have the time of your life spending 10 days diving with them. You’ll learn wide-angle lens techniques Amos has adapted for photographing whales, equipping you with new skills to swim safer and closer and take better pictures of these magnificent animals. Yes, of course you’ll want to join us.
