A good night’s sleep. A museli breakfast with raisins, dates, almonds, and a few slices of watermelon
The morning is cool and raindrops are softly hitting the earth.
But still, everything’s better in the morning.
We climb aboard and head out to sea. An hour has passed and we’re still heading straight out to sea. We spot three humpback whales in three different directions. Georgia, the boat captain heads to the middle. She asks Robby, our kiwi guide who looks like Aqua man or Kevin Costner in Waterworld, slides into the water with the familiarity of a fish. It’s not the spot. He slides into the boat as easily as he slid out. A little more distance and we are side by side with a humpback whale. The whale dives. We wait ten minutes. Seventeen minutes passes. Georgia says, “He should surface soon.”
A whale can only stay underwater for twenty-minutes. Before the whale hits its underwater maximum, it surfaces.
Before I left for Tonga, I read Moby Dick. Not the original, but a graphic novel shortened for children. With the harsh-face illustrations, the intensity of Captain Ahab, the crew, the hatred for the whale, the short version doesn’t lessen the story. Perhaps it magnifies the desperate hunt for the whale.
Ours is a peaceful hunt, one that glorifies the whale’s beautiful and mysterious existence, not a hunt that seeks whale blubber and revenge.
“In the water,” Georgia’s gentle voice speaks.
I slide into the sea trying to imitate Robby. I kick sideways towards our guide who floats over the whale.
Immediate blue. I am suspended in deep blue jello.
It is intense and immense. I am immersed in blue. Overwhelmed by blue. The waves jostle and toss, but I keep my head down looking for our whale.
He lies on the ocean floor on his back. Still. Forty tons and Forty-five feet long. But his voice sings.
Whales sing. But only the males. Distant songs respond.
It is an eery song. A song with notes of pain and joy. At one point the whale sounds like a moaning man with heartache, deep and treacherous. A different pitch sounds like a snore. Yet, when the whale rests on the bottom, when half of his brain shuts down, to me, it sounds like he is snoring. That is why male whales are often solitary. They snore too loud. My silly assumption.
Even though I love to imagine the whole bottom of the ocean filled with snoring whales, scientists have never deemed a whale song “snoring.” Tremendous research has gone into whale singing. It is believed and documented that whales create a new song each year. When they gather at the last point of their migration in Antarctica, they share their individual whale songs and then collaborate to create one shared song. Like jazz.
Whale songs are one of the mystery projects that artificial intelligence is trying to crack. Someday, scientists hope to have a dictionary of their entire language.
The command from the whale swimming crew is that we stay close together. If we stay close, the whale will sense our clump of people and not feel threatened. If we were to spread out, we might be misinterpreted as a predator. Yet, it is hard not to be bumped about and far away by the waves, the wind, and the current. So I do my best to huddle. I take Tony’s hand. But it is more than security. It is connecting to marvel together. I want to experience this with the flesh of Tony’s soft hand.
Zac calls us back to the boat. Group two needs a turn. “But” Robby calls back, “they need to see him surface.”
I am torn. Do I listen to Robby or Zac? Zac calls my name and I return with reluctance but happy that John and Steve will have a turn.
They enter the water minutes before the whale surfaces.
Perfect timing.
For them.
Robby stays in the water following the whale.
If the whale wanted, it could speed away. But it doesn’t. It moves slowly enough for a human to stay close. Robby is by his side when the whale dives. He calls group one back into the water. This time we will wait and watch it surface.
Forty tons of whale is weightless in water.
We are supposed to stay in front of the whale and to the side, but I slowly drift just above its massive body. It is thrilling. And frightening. If this massive whale rose I would be lifted or bumped, or whatever else happens to a body lifted by the rising of a whale. I work hard to move to the side.
The whale is surfacing. It’s like watching a small nation rise to the surface. It is effortless, smooth. The full body of the whale is directly in front of me. I am overwhelmed with awe.
For ninety minutes, we trade spots in the boat. We watch, wait, pull on flippers, squeeze masks over heads, swim fast to the spot next to Robby. Gaze. Gaze downward at creation, at life, so different and ethereal from our own.
We head back to shore with a slight diversion from our destination. There is a baby, a mother, an escort.
The escort is a bit of a mystery. For not all mothers and babies have escorts. I am sure of one thing. The escort is the grandmother. A whale’s life span is estimated at sixty years, but whales have been found with whaling spear tips in them from the 1800s. For those lucky enough to have grandmothers or grandfathers, they are pulled into this long journey to make sure their daughter’s offspring is safe from the predators always in waiting. Again, my interpretation.
The anthropomorphizing of whale emotions is common to those who love whales. To see a whale, to understand they are sentient beings, is to love and care for them, and naturally we assign human characteristics such as snoring and grandmotherly protections. This act is pooh poohed by science, but Zac, our guide, thinks that science is behind. He fosters hope that one day, man may have the scientific means to recognize a grandma, her daughter and her grandchild riding the waves in the Tongan sea.
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