Swimming with Humpback Whales: The Good and the Bad

Monday morning was pretty busy for us since we had to check out at Sandy Beach as we were staying at their sister resort Matafonua for one day next. We also had to eat breakfast and be ready to go out to the boat by 8:30. (We had been sleeping in a lot so this was especially difficult for lil ol' pregnant me.)

Pancakes! While I've been a waffle girl, I've been wanting pancakes this pregnancy.

We get on the boat and I put my wet suit on. Spencer didn't wear his since he thought the water was warm enough. It was a smaller group compared to the rest of the boats that also went out. We were split in Group A or B. One of our instructors told us that each time a group went out, one of the people could do a double and stay out another turn. We would rotate who did a double to make it fair.

The boat on the right is the kind of boat we were on.

Spencer was the designated picture taker. I think he did a fabulous job! My snorkeling mask was a problem because no matter how tight I made it, the part around the eyes would flood and I got sunscreen AND salt water in my eyes. It was not a grand ol' time.

Google photos made these first two. Baby whales love to spin!

The first time we went out there was a mama whale and a baby whale. Whales go to Tonga to give birth between July and October, and we just happened to go in the middle of whale season in September. Perf! 

Baby whales go up for air more frequently than the mama whales, but Spencer got to see a mama whale go up to the surface and see how HUGE she actually was (I didn't get that luxury since we ended up being in the opposite group as I gave him my double.) It was tiring.

We would only stay with a whale for about 90 minutes to make sure we weren't bothering them. After 90 minutes we would find another whale and park our boat near them. If they didn't seem to be bothered after five minutes or so, we would get out of the boat and swim toward them. Most of the time they didn't mind us gawking at them, but other times they would swim away and we'd try to swim after them. Either we'd catch up to them and have the 90 minute session, or we'd find another whale.

WHALES SWIM SO FAST. My pregnant body couldn't keep up! I didn't realize how tiring swimming with whales would actually be!  The instructor came out with us each time, and she noticed I was trailing behind after one whale was swimming away from us. She offered me to grab her 'rescue tube' while she swam for me. (I'm grateful she mentioned that anyone could do this if they were tired, so I didn't feel too bad. But I'm pretty sure I was the only one who had to latch on.)

Spencer said he felt the shock wave of the tail moving.

We found another mama and baby whale, I love these pictures (below) as the baby wants to swim so close to mama and be protected. We could hear them make noises too.

Both going up for air.

Another set of pictures of a whale:

Baby whale:

Videos (may be a little shaky):

At the very end of our whale swimming trip, I finally decided that I had enough energy to stay and do a double because I was already out in the water. I was SO glad that I did. It was one of the coolest experiences of the trip! The baby whales are more likely to get close to you than the mama whales. They like to play and show off. As a baby whale came up for air, (we'll just call her 'she') she got really close to all of us. We're supposed to maintain a distance of 5 meters away, but I'm pretty sure I was within 10 feet of her. I felt like I was in the prime spot since she was just staring at me with one of her eyes. It was crazy that she was acknowledging that I (and the rest of us) were there. What an ending!

Other pictures:

Such a cool picture of a mama whale!

We were getting off the boat around 4 p.m., and while we were getting back to shore is when I started to realize that Spencer was getting burned... and so did I. We didn't think too much about it since we had other plans for the rest of the day. After we checked into Motafonua, we tried to get bikes to get to one of Spencer's areas. Unfortunately, the front desk they said we couldn't because they don't check out bikes after 5 p.m. Instead of trying to find members to make and have dinner with, we had BBQ dinner. Around this time we really didn't think our burns were going to get super bad, but they did!

After dinner, we spent the rest of the evening tending our burns. Spencer's entire back and shoulders was super red (and other places developed later on) and my face, feet, and hands were burned. One of the reasons I got burned was because I didn't want to put more sunscreen on my face while my snorkel wasn't working. It would have gotten into my eyes and continued to burn. Apparently we didn't stay in the shade long enough! The spirit prompted me to pack a trial sized container of aloe vera, so we quickly got to work with putting it on.

This was only the beginning of the bad burns....

I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn't fall back asleep for about two hours. I ended up crying and woke up Spencer. He gave me a blessing for my headache, pains, and my sunburn. I did some research on my phone and found out a cold towel on a burn would help. I ended up getting one of Spencer's shirts wet and laid it on his back. I tried doing the same thing for my face but it wasn't very successful. But thanks to his blessing I ended up falling asleep a little bit quicker than I expected. Didn't sleep super great but it was better than nothing.