TRY TO STAY CALM!
My first swim I thought I was going to have a heart attack and die. I love the beach but never in my had I life jumped off a perfectly good boat into the middle of the ocean. I don’t know why I didn’t realise Swimming with Whales would be out in the deep dark blue ocean waters...and it freaked me out! Not to mention the fact the guide just jumped off the boat and then the Captain starting yelling go go go and everyone starting jumping off the boat and I was in an instant panic!
YOU ARE NOT MEANT TO KEEP UP WITH THE GUIDE
I think this is the most important point you should know when you go on your Whale swim and probably the reason I couldn’t stay calm and panicked. I felt like I was getting left behind. Left behind, alone in the deep dark blue ocean. The guides and like literally dolphins, they just glide through the water, they have done this a million times after all! What you need to realise is when they jump off the boat they are actually looking for the Whales, when they find them they stop and raise their hand. So you don’t need to keep up with the guide the whole time, just relax, keep you head down and swim and a consistent pace, obviously look up every now and then to make sure you are following the guides general direction, don’t swim like a maniac as a fast as you can to swim right behind them and use all your energy up like I did.
THE WHALES WILL COME UP BELOW YOU.
The first time I saw the guide raise her hand, I got so excited and started to look around everywhere but I couldn’t see any whales? This freaked me out more, how could I not see them? As I shrugged to her, that I couldn’t see them, she pointed down. I had looked around everywhere but not looked down! Down deep in the dark blue waters I could see the shadow of what looked like a sub-marine. Slowly rising to the surface. Trust the guide, and stay behind them at ALL times. My first reaction to seeing this rising sub-marine sized whale was, I need to get out of the way! I felt like it was coming up right underneath me and it can be hard to perceive the actual distances in the water. The guides are amazing, they really are, how they can read the Whales behaviour is truly amazing.
LISTEN TO YOUR GUIDES INSTRUCTIONS
You need to trust in your guide at all times, you need to stay behind the guide and never go in front of them. I have seen people swim away from the guides and try and swim around the other side and they don’t realise the guides are keeping us together not just to keep us safe but to minimise the impact to the Whales.
RESPECT THE WHALES
The whale swim operators want you to have an amazing experience but not at the expense of the Whales. It can be frustrating some times, if you don’t understand what they are doing. You may be on the boat for an hour, seeing heaps of Whales in the water not understanding why they don’t just go over to those Whales and let us swim with them? What are they doing? Well, they are watching and observing the behaviour of the Whale. They can’t chase the whale, generally (not always) you will jump in around the location the whales should surface. Again every swim is different but trust the guides and respect that the Whales happiness is more important than your privilege to swim with them.
SHOULD WE SWIM WITH WHALES
I’ve asked this question many times, and I wonder if in years it will be like riding an elephant. I have asked this question to a marine biologist expert in humpback Whales and she basically said the following: the whales are fasting when in Tonga and need their energy for their long journey home. So if we chase them around and they have to use energy to get away from us, then we would be making a negative impact on them. There also lots of studies to say swimming with a mother and calf’s should be banned and some operators already take the initiative to implement this even though they don’t have to. Personally as cute as the babies are, the pics look better with the adult whales cause they are so big and they tend interact with you for longer. I do believe that if super strict rules are implemented into reducing stress to the Whales and they are followed to a tee, we could have as much impact on them as a piece of seaweed floating by them and continue to enjoy this amazing experience.
TOP TIPS
- Stay calm
- Don’t try to keep up with the guide
- Stay behind the guide at all times
- Remember to look down!
- Bring your own quality snorkel mask