First of all, apologies for the lateness of this whale blog. The intention was to up date the blog every week, but we’ve been so busy that it just hasn’t happened, so to start with I will give a brief over view of the season so far. The whales were later arriving this year than last. Our first sighting wasn’t until the very end of June and we didn’t see whales regularly until the second week of July. Interestingly, the same pattern was observed with the whales migrating along the east coast of Australia. The beginning of July was also quite windy so we were forced to stay close to the islands in sheltered water however we still had some very good encounters. We enjoyed watching a lot of energetic surface activity including breaching, spy hopping, tail slaps and tail lifts. Towards the end of the month we started having more in-water encounters, particularly when the weather settled down. One of these was a fantastic session with a singing male. We were able to observe him singing with his head actually resting against the reef at the corner of Ha’ano Island. In the same week we also had a lovely interaction with a mother and her very young calf.

At the end of July we began a two week program with an organisation called Dolphcom, organised by facilitator, Andrew Parker. The programs bring together like minded people from all over the world with a shared passion for experiencing and interacting with whales and dolphins in their natural environments, as well as working towards a greater understanding of what draws us to these magnificent creatures. The groups enjoyed some great encounters including a tremendous double breaching display by two adults as well as several beautiful underwater encounters. During one particularly intense interaction with a mother and calf, Andrew was treated to a mimic game with the mother as they copied each other’s arm/pectoral fin movements.

The weather in August has been very settled and we have been very lucky to enjoy calm conditions most days. The range of encounters has been fantastic with each day bringing something new. Last week we had a very gentle swim with a mother and her brand new, and almost white, calf, accompanied by a very dark coloured escort. In the past week we have also been observing a lot of intense surface activity with groups of up to six whales at a time. The highlight this week though, was our 2nd in-water encounter with a singing male. Not only were we able to record a portion of his singing but we also witnessed how he was producing some of the range of sounds by opening and closing his enormous mouth. Click here to listen to his song.

We are really lucky to have such a great team on CatKnapp this year -Tracey Dean (the artist who painted the great whales on CatKnapp) has joined us again for the 3rd year as an in-water guide together with Lucy from the UK. Lucy has worked with the RSPCA and also as a guide at a wildlife park. We’ve got my good friend Ben with us until September, bringing a raft of experience starting with his involvement in 1992 with the 1st research groups in Vava’u. This is Ben’s 4th visit to Tonga. My new partner, Janey, also joins us most days. Janey is an experienced yachtswomen and adventurer and brings a wide range of skills and knowledge to the team. Finally, we have Megan from Macquarie University, Sydney with us until mid September. Megan is conducting a pilot study looking at the effects of in-water interactions. She will be observing the response from the whales when we approach them, or they approach us, both from the boat and in the water. The aim of the study is to observe the reaction from the whales to approaches by the boat and by swimmers in the water and to determine if the whales show any signs of stress or avoidance behaviour during close encounters. This will help us develop our techniques further and will hopefully be of use to others involved in whale watching activities.

Our own research work is going very well. So far this year we have photographed at least 10 new whales. Lucy has been doing a fantastic job writing up the sighting sheets each day and Tristan has excelled himself with the development of the data log on our website. Check it out above and view the records for this year!