Whale Tale

One of the craziest but simultaneously most amazing things that has happened to me in my life involved a humpback whale. Sounds strange, I know. But from January through March, humpback whales are in Hawaii as part of their annual migration. They come here to the warm, shallow waters to breed and raise their young. Along the northwestern coastline of the Big Island is prime whale territory because of a shelf that makes the water less than 500 feet deep. There are lots of whale watching trips and you can often see them from the shore in different locations.

My friend Mike, who is a photographer at the newspaper, has a boat that he takes out often. As a photographer, he will sit around in the boat, waiting for whales to randomly surface. One day we were out there for about 5 hours and two humpback whales suddenly surfaced — breeched — close to the boat and then hung around. Mike jumped in the water with his camera gear and the whales stayed about 100 feet below him for 15 minutes, just singing whale song. He dove down a few times to get photos. When he got back to the boat and as he was climbing in, I saw huge white formations pass right by and under the boat — the whales returned. We were a few miles off shore in at least 1,000 feet of water, but I threw on my mask, snorkel and fins, and jumped in.

There they were. Right in front of me. Maybe 25 feet away. Two 40-foot long humpback whales. All around us was a vast blue ocean. The whales slowly swam about, kind of hanging there. One of them turned toward me. Even though I knew they didn't attack people, I held my breath for a moment, wondering if it would inadvertently crash into me or what. But it was just turning to get a better look at me. With an eye the size of my head, it stared into my soul. I just tried to look back with reverence and respect...this was a highly intelligent creature.

The two whales swam off and then returned three more times. Each time I jumped back in to be in the water with these massive mammals. Once a whale was under me and it exhaled through its blowhole, sending a stream of bubbles up around me. The whole thing was an incredible experience, but each time they would disappear, the endless blue of the open ocean kind of freaked me out a bit and I'd quickly climb back in the boat.

I haven't really been out whale watching yet this season. I don't know if I'll ever be that close to one again. But even if that was a once in a lifetime experience, I am forever awestruck by that memory.

I wrote an article for West Hawaii Today about a whale research project called SPLASH. Or you can check out an article by another reporter on whale season. Plus there is the official website of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.