I stood up on the board when kite-boarding today! We won’t linger on the fact that it was only for about 5 seconds before falling back into the water… but I stood up!!! Ed spent the entire day (literally… we went out at 9 and finished at 4) teaching me how to do upwind drags, powering the kite during body drags, getting up without using a board (where I proceeded to get about 3 pounds of sand in the bottoms of my swimsuit), and finally getting up with a board. It was fantastic. Even with sunscreen, these seven hours also allowed me to work on my amazing tan – or should we say burn – lines. It now looks like I have red gloves on and it feels as though I am wearing a clay mask since my entire face got quite a bit of sun. I now just need to practice a lot, and then who knows, perhaps you will be hearing from the next kite-boarding extraordinaire.


We’ve had a great last few days. The whales are starting to be a bit more friendly, and curious it seems. Two days ago we swam with five adult whales (one female and four males), who came incredibly close. I finally got some shots that I’m excited about. Yesterday, we swam with a mom and tiny calf, which probably wasn’t older than a week old, with three males chasing them around. If those pesky males weren’t bothering her, I bet you anything the mom and calf would have settled down to rest and allowed us to have a really nice, long encounter. Oh well. I’m looking forward to the next few days.

So, it has happened… I am officially… unemployed. Having chosen the 12 month pay cycle, I have received my final paycheck (it’s always nice to get paid when you don’t work!). Pretty crazy. Thank you to all of my absolutely incredible coworkers. I have learned so much these last three years and appreciate all the support and guidance you have given me. I will be thinking of you when you start up again, what is it, next week?!

After a week of high winds, big swells, and no swims with the whales, the weather has broken, the winds have died down , and we have had two fantastic days. Thank you for all of the good vibes that have been sent this way… it must have worked. Yesterday, we had a nice long swim and look at a mom, calf, and escort (male), which was amazing. The baby played around it’s mom’s face, and she would slowly lift her up to the surface to breathe, then she would play some more. The male escort was a little jealous of our presence and swam around the two of them, always keeping an eye on us, and would go just out of range and flail his tail to say to us that he was the dominant one here. We never felt threatened though and his movements weren’t aggressive. Today, we had a great swim with three adult whales who were curious and kept coming back around to the boat. At one point, we were swimming back to the boat to let the next group into the water, and I looked down, and the three whales were coming directly at me and swam about ten feet below me. It was incredible. I was so surprised.

I’ve been doing a lot of my shooting with my fisheye lens, which gives a 180 degree view, and the last two days have tried my 12-24mm lens (with it set on the 12mm setting as I haven’t been able to get the piece to turn the lens inside the housing to work… that’s on the list for things to do tonight). With these lenses, the animals appear farther away than they actually are, so I’m going to try tomorrow to a. get even closer if possible, and/or b. try a closer zoom. I’d like to get some nice shots closer in of the whales if possible. We’ll see how that goes.

The weather is supposed to stay nice for the next week, possibly two so that is fantastic. Mom and James (my brother) will be arriving here next Wednesday, so I’m hoping the winds will stay down. I’m so excited for them to come!

Harlequin leatherjacket

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Chicken, the cat

Topside action

I had my first official kite-boarding lesson yesterday where learned how to set up the kite as well as the theory and safety information. Today, Ed was giving a lesson to a man who is in Tonga on a 3-year, around the world sailing trip, so I sat in on the flying portion of the lesson, which was great. I’m excited to try flying the kite myself (hopefully within the next couple of days). The winds have picked up again, so it’s good for kiting, but really bad for whale watching. The last three days, we have gone out whale watching, and have seen quite a bit of topside action (such as breeching and tail slapping, etc). However, with the water being on the rougher side, and the whales not really settling down, we haven’t been in the water very much in the last few days. Today, we were blown out.


We heard a “singer” yesterday. The male humpbacks are the only ones who sing and their song will last for 15-20 minutes. When they sing, they have their nose pointed down and hang vertically in the water before surfacing again. All the whales in Tonga sing the same song which changes slightly during their time here. All of the southern humpback whales sing the same song, although there are slight variations from region to region (similar to how an American accent is different from an Australian accent, although we are both speaking English). The northern humpbacks, however, have a completely different song (so it’s like a completely different language). The humpbacks songs have been recorded as much as 5,000 kilometers away, so it is quite possible that the northern and southern whales can hear each other. What we don’t know (and I don’t know if there is any way to know), if the two groups can understand each other… so in a sense, are the whales bilingual?

Although I grew up learning how to gut a fish, I hadn’t done it in a while, so when Marta told me that there were local Tongan fishermen on the other side of the island, and she wanted to buy some fish, I didn’t need much convincing to join her. The men had their nets out and had caught about 50 or so fish. Marta was able to buy 10 fish for $15 Paang’a (about $7.50 US). As the fishermen threw the fish onto the shore, I thought about how it gave a new meaning to the phrase “catching fish”. She re-taught me how to gut and clean the fish and we had a couple of them for dinner that evening. Absolutely delicious!

Breeching Humpback

Double-finned whale - very unusual.

Spinner dolphin

Spy-hopping

Yours truly

Marta and me

Milky Way - the stars are unbelievable here.

"Catching" and cleaning fish.

male whales chasing one female

six-lined soapfish

The water was much murkier today than it was yesterday, but we saw our first mom and calf underwater! Yesterday, we saw seven males that were chasing one female (not bad odds for her!) and we had a few good looks at them under the water. It was incredibly exciting! In order to woo the females, the males will ram their bodies into one another, make grunting noises, slap their pectoral fins on each other, and sometimes breach. It's all a bit chaotic, but very cool to watch.

We have had very wacky weather these last few days, which has made the seas rough to be out in. A "weather bomb" came in incredibly quickly and brought the winds up to 40-knots and huge rains in a matter of about half an hour. It lasted for an hour, but has stirred up the water making it murkier than usual and has caused the swells to be large. Luckily, I have my good friend Dramamine, to keep me in top form while on the boat.

I stumbled upon an octopus yesterday, which wedged itself as far back underneath a coral mound as it could go. It changed from this burnt umber/dark red color to a greenish white to attempt to blend into its background. It couldn't have been larger than an inch long. I've been getting a lot of grief about not bringing it back with me for dinner!

octopus eye

speckled butterflyfish

docking the boat during the 'weather bomb'