Yep, it is a long way to go to Tonga from Dallas Texas. About 3.5 hours to LA, then 10 hours overnight to Fiji. And, then another 2 hours from Nadi in Fiji to Vanavu Tonga. When spread over a couple of days it was not too bad. Two checked bags, and I carried on the plane a roller board and a backpack. I did manage to get the dive equipment and camera gear to Tonga. And, thanks to the nice folks at Fiji airways it all arrived on time and without any breakage. Hurray.
When we got off the plane in Tonga it was pretty warm, mid 80’s and sunny. You could tell, Tonga gets a lot of rain, all of the plants were very green and lush. The airport in Neiafu Tonga is pretty small. Two people to check passports. Luggage pickup was efficient, the baggage handlers just passed it through a portal in the wall. Even with a plane full of people, and we were the last to get off the plane, it only took about 1/2 and hour. With a 15 minute ride we were at the house where 6 of us stayed. We unpacked and then went to dinner in town. There are about 3 restaurants in town. An Italian restaurant, a Spanish bar, and a pizza restaurant. Over the week we ate at all three and we favored the Italian restaurant.
After dinner I put the camera and underwater housing together. I put the 16-35mm lens on and added the zen 9 inch glass dome. Ugh, was it ever heavy. We didn’t have to check the weather, it was windy and overcast.
We got to the boat the next morning. The boat was a single engine aluminum hull dive boat. Thankfully it had good cover. By about 7:30 a.m. we were on the water and heading out to the far end of the bay. The seas were pretty rough, we had 6-10 foot waves and there were a lot of waves. Half the passengers were chumming the fish, and sometimes on multiple occasions even after taking Dramamine. I told one the passengers we should rename the boat. the vomit comet; my comment got a chuckle from the non- chummers, but otherwise was too close in time.
Trying to find whales in rough seas was a challenge. We found a few and did a couple of drops to swim with the whales, but got relatively few shots. Anybody who thinks that humpback whales swim slowly is mistaken. Michael Phelps in fins on his best day might be able to do a short maximum effort of 3 miles per hour. Whales can do 5 mph or more depending on what they are doing. So for us old geezers with fins on our best hope is that the captain drops us in front of where the whales are going to swim by and the whales then swim by, and if we work hard we can get left behind by the whales in about 10-20 seconds.
I learned a couple of lessons the first day. My favorite fins which work great for scuba diving are not the best when trying to just snorkel with whales. Paddle type fins, particularly paddles with little flexibility spend a lot of time in the air particularly when there are big waves. When they are in the air they don’t do you much good. So I wound up swimming on my side most of the time. Talk about a great way to swallow half the ocean. That snorkel often became a big straw. When I come back, next time, I will bring the old split fins that are really flexible and will stay in the water all of the time. That way the snorkel will not fill with water as often in big seas.
The second lesson I learned was that in rough water where you are having to do a lot of swimming, pushing a 9 inch glass dome is a challenge and was probably a bad idea. Now don’t get me wrong, having the ability to zoom in to 35 mm from 16mm is helpful; and using a rectilinear lens is a lot of fun underwater. But, pushing the weight and the girth of the dome through the water was quite the resistance workout. After two days of rough seas and pushing the dome, I decided to change the port to a 4 inch port and just use my trusty 16mm lens.
On the boat ride out to the whale grounds on the third day, with my 4 inch port attached, I told one of our group that what I wanted was an old slow whale who was more interested in napping than chasing about here and there. Well I kind of got my wish.
We did a couple of jumps with a few single whales and then we had lunch. During lunch the captain told us that we were going to try to swim with a mom and baby whale but we were the fifth boat in line. The captain told us he was trying to talk a couple of the other captains in to letting us go ahead of them because we had less available time on the water. They agreed so we jumped up to boat two. So we alternated with another boat, they had four in the water then we had a group in the water. Some people say that having a long time with whales is magical. I don’t really subscribe to that theory. I did find it was a lot easier to shoot images of the mother and baby whale then the momma whale was napping. There were a couple of times when I seemed to drift in closer to the whales than our guide wanted. He would pull on my fin and I would back up a bit. And of course, I was wishing I had left the 16-35mm lens and the nine inch dome on because there was not much pushing of the dome through the water.
All told we had about 45 minutes in the water with the mom and baby whale. Compared to the prior days and the succeeding two days, it was a great day.
Would I go back, probably, but I would probably go back earlier in the season to see some heat runs and maybe have some calmer seas.