Where the whales sing
Trip Start
Sep 23, 2004
1
75
77
Trip End
Ongoing
Vava'u,
Tonga
Monday, July 14, 2008
On Tuesday I was diving again. After a hearty breakfast, I waded out to the dive boat and we set off, past islands filled with chattering flying foxes. Paul, our dive master from yesterday, was driving the boat, and Carolyn was DM. Sione had listened to my request for better weather and had organised it; the sun was out and the waters were calmer. Our dives today were filled with pretty and pristine coral, and were great macro dives; we found nudibranches, ghost pipefish, little crabs and a tiny juvenile grouper which looked and moved like a piece of seaweed being tossed in the current. Most magic of all, during the second dive the song of humpback whales drifted through the water, accompanying us on our tour.
In the afternoon I went back to the Aquarium cafe for lunch, where I bumped into Jim and met Grant and his crewmember Cynthia, two more Canadians who were trotting round the globe on board Wolverine.
01 Pincushion sea star
Jim invited us on a night sail. Well, it would have been rude to say no. Back on board Island Prism, I took the helm and Cynthia manned the sails. It was a beautiful night, the stars were out, the moon was nearly full, Jupiter was shining and the breeze was warm and strong. We spent a few hours tacking and gybing with Port of Refuge; it was great fun and my helming improved. We even sailed to the mooring buoy and I learned to heave to, to stop the boat while under sail. A glass of wine and it was time to go, but not before we had arranged a big adventure for Thursday...Wednesday was my final dive day, and Paul chose two spectacular dives to round it off. The first was another great macro dive- nudibranches, rosettes of Spanish dancers' eggs, great soft corals and many many feather stars. The visibility was over 30 metres and I played with the flash on my dive camera, which I can't normally use as it highlights any particles in the water. Everyone assured me that this vis (best I've ever dived in) is awful for Tonga, and I should come back in January when the seas are as still as a mill pond and you can see for 50 metres or more... The whales were singing again, out somewhere in the big blue, and it was magic.
For our second dive, we started off in a cavern. Rays of shimmering blue light shone through the entrance behind us and the other divers were silhouetted against turquoise as we moved into the cave. My torch revealed beautiful rock formations, and a small white-tipped reef shark lurking in the back of the cavern. Turning a corner, our torches lit up bright red anemones with pure white tentacles, squirrelfish staring back at us with large melancholy eyes, and a fire clam, bright red with long trailing tentacles, wedged in a crevice like a hidden jewel. Emerging from the cave, we were on a steep wall, encrusted with coral and teeming with life, which held our attention until the two grey reef sharks came to distract us. They prowled up and down the wall, showing a lot of interest in a shoal of surgeon fish which twisted and turned away from their attentions. The two predators drifted into sight regularly throughout the dive, awesome and beautiful creatures, eventually vanishing as we ascended to a gorgeous safety stop in coral gardens.
