Yes, we went swimming with whales today. Tonga is one of the few places in the world you can do that. Is it ethical? I am not sure. The activities are strictly regulated, and the boat crew seemed to take genuine care to avoid bothering the whales. They even passed up the fist opportunity to put the clients in the water when the captain decided the whale was not interested in having us around. But the second mother and calf were pretty laid back. The boat dropped us off with our guide about fifty yards from them, and we swam gently over and alongside them, with the guide herding us snorkelers away from getting closer than about twenty feet from the humpback whales and her calf. The whale watching boats out of Boston we’ve seen have seemed to be harassing the humpbacks more than these gentle swimmers.

It was somehow less thrilling - or frightening - than I expected, as the mother and calf lumbered along in the not perfectly clear water nearby. Still it was cool to see the full length and breadth of one of these magnificent creatures that I have glimpsed so many times at the surface, so briefly.

The other whale swimmers on the boat were adventure tourists who heard Tonga was open and rushed in to swim with the whales before the crowds arrived. Apparently, there can be forty whale swim boats out there on a busy day, today there were just two. Rick and Nairi were from Fairbanks, Alaska, Vasch from India by way of London, and David from Wellington.

After the whale tour and some last chance provisioning before everything shuts down for Sunday, we ended up chatting with the new US boat in the harbor, a huge Beneteau 60 skippered by Jeff and Katie, home port Newport Beach. Even on a sixty footer, they complained of having a rough passage too. The crew of a NZ boat was on board too, John and Kia. And somehow we all ended up at the Bellavjsta Restaurant for dinner, with David and Vasch from the whale swim, swapping stories and plans and dreams over pizzas.

I had the Vava’u pizza, which was pineapple and ham, of course