Tags
bucketlisttrip, cetacean, jungleparadise, livingthedream, moorea, outsidemycomfortzone, swimmingwithwhales, travel, whale, whales
Many people are satisfied living a life of routine. Maybe the routine is something like go to work, go to the gym, and then watch TV until you fall asleep. Rinse and repeat. That’s not me. I’m not the person who plans to start living their life when they retire, and I’m not the person who makes excuses. There will always be an excuse not to do something…money, fear, guilt and, oh, my favorite “it’s haaaard.” Again, that’s not me. I’ve had my wake-up call, and I know I’m working on a time limit.
Some of you know that I love whales. When I saw an opportunity to swim with them in the wilds of Mo’orea, I said, “Sign me up!” When I heard it was dangerous, I said, “I’ll take two!”
For those of you who don’t know, Moorea is a lush, green, mountainous, tropical island located somewhere between California and New Zealand. Formed by an erupting volcano, the mountains appear to be tectonic plates thrust up into their air, creating incredibly steep, thin green mountains. At first sight, the island looks like a possible setting for an Indiana Jones movie, Jurassic Park, or one of my favorites, Love Affair, starring Annette Bening and Warren Beatty. All of this lush green jungle would surely have snakes, right? Nooooo. At least that’s what I’ve been told, and I’ll choose to believe it for the time being.
To get to Mo’orea, you fly to Tahiti and take a ferry. Being located in French Polynesia, surprise, everyone there speaks French or Tahitian. I know this because, being immediately smitten with the beautiful island upon seeing the highest peak, which I intend to climb, my first question was, “Do they have a courthouse here? If so, what language do they speak?” Yes, they have a courthouse; but, unfortunately, English isn’t the primary language spoken there.
This island is a place where the locals aren’t afraid to tell you that their ancestors traveled here from southeast Asia and brought along dogs, pigs, and chickens. Sadly, all for food versus companionship. Of course, they also ate humans, which caused me to glance twice at our tour guide in case she had any intentions of whipping up a batch of Kristie Soup. Since the humans they ate were usually invaders, I didn’t feel too badly about it. If you’re going to go around invading places that aren’t yours, you run the risk of being eaten. The dogs, on the other hand, were innocent bystanders. Our guide even told me that the chestnut-colored doggies were considered the tastiest. My mind wandered to the possibility of bringing home all chestnut-colored dogs before I was quickly reassured that dogs were no longer eaten in Mo’orea. Again, that’s the story I was told, and that’s what I’m going to run with.
As mentioned above, I came here to swim with whales. Specifically, humpback whales and their babies. Mo’orea and Tahiti are where humpbacks migrate to after leaving their feeding grounds in the cold waters of Antarctica. In the warm waters of Mo’orea, they will give birth to their young. Those not giving birth will likely be getting their groove on mating or maybe just frolicking.
My friend and I went with a travel group, and there were two rib boats. Our boat had six passengers, a captain, and a crew member/scout.
In our briefing, we were told that there are three kinds of whales here: Moving whales, active whales, and resting whales. Active whales are socializing, breaching, and tail and pec fin slapping. Not something you want to get in the way of with a 45-foot, 40-ton animal. Resting whales are what we were to look for.
Much of Mo’orea is surrounded by a reef that breaks the large waves of the ocean into shallow, turquoise water. If whales are seen inside the harbor or reef area, it’s illegal to swim with them. They are likely in distress. It’s also illegal to Scuba dive with the whales, but snorkeling is A-OK, and that’s what we were to do.
As a little background, I’ve snorkeled before, but it’s been about twenty years, and it was in a protected cove, not in the middle of a wavy, black sea. It’s not as easy as it looks when you’re jumping into black water in the middle of the ocean with giant swells and Lord-knows-what waiting for you below. Scary, right? Now that it’s over, yes, the thought of what was below crossed my mind every day for six days. I just had to suck it up and get over my fear.
On Day 1, about an hour out of the harbor, not only did we spot a whale, but the heat penetrated my waisted wetsuit, making me horribly hot, and that led to motion sickness. Ugh. I really wanted to see the whales, but it was everything I could do to keep from tossing my poorly-made omelet that was supposed to be spinach and mushroom but turned out to be cucumber, carrot, and tomatoes. Double ugh! Lost in translation.
Once you find one or more whales, the captain and scout will check out the whale’s breathing pattern and determine whether it’s moving or not before yelling to us, “Get ready!” That means get your wetsuit zipped up, fins on, hood on, mask over eyes, snorkel ready to go, and have your camera equipment in hand. The scout is first to gear up, jump in, and locate the submerged whale. Seeing the scout’s raised fist in the air means they’re on the whale, and we can get out of the boat.
A little intimidated by the serious scuba divers in the group and the black unknown that I was jumping into, I was last out of the boat wearing my cute, little baby fins that I bought because I thought they’d be easier to travel with. Boy, was I wrong! Once you plunge into the unknown, you start snorkeling towards your scout. Face down, I found myself panicking and gasping for air as the large swells often kept not only the rest of the group from my sight but the boat as well. Feeling alone in a vast sea, scenes from Titanic flashed through my mind, and I desperately wanted Rose’s headboard to float on.
Minutes in, one of my fins popped off. I struggled to grab it and put it back on, quickly getting left behind. Fortunately, the scout saw me lagging and came over with a boogie board for me to hang on to while I put my fin back on. Then he let me use the boogie board to catch up to the rest of the group, but not before a fin slipped off a second time. So much for the cute fins that got me nowhere fast. By this time, the whale had moved on, and we had to return to the boat. Strike one.
I was really shaken up by the swell that had separated me from the world around me, and so I decided to just stay in the boat the rest of the day and take photos. Actually, I was pretty sure I’d be fine sitting in the boat for the rest of the trip, but being a big, fat chicken is not the way I roll, and so, the next morning, I borrowed some longer fins, put on my big-girl pants, and decided to try again.
The second day, we had to travel to the other side of the island before spotting whales near the channel between Tahiti and Mo’orea. This time, the crew had me take a boogie board with me as a security blanket, and things went much better.
As I kicked away with my borrowed replacement flippers that weren’t cute but did the job, I approached the scout and looked around for some direction. He told me it was a singer and pointed down into the blue water around me. I poked my masked face into the water and, not only could I hear that eerie and kinda scary sounding whale song (they either sound mad or sad), but right below me I saw a large male humpback just hanging out in one spot at the bottom and singing his little (actually, it’s pretty big) heart out. Some of his song sounded sad, like he was lonely, and other parts sounded like he was mad and going to kill me with a swish of his peduncle or tail.
As I continued to watch him sing, slowly, he started to effortlessly float up from the bottom of the sea, heading straight towards me. As he got closer, I turned on my GoPro and worried that he would run into me as he came up for air. Fortunately, he went right by me to come up for his breath. Wow, what a feeling! The way the vibrations from his song had penetrated my chest was indescribable. I also got to swim with two other whales in a different location on Day 2.
Day 3 was the best. The swell had been tough on me, and I lingered in the boat for about a half hour watching the rest of the group play with a baby while its mom rested at the bottom. The baby even breached near them. I kept thinking the baby would get bored and leave, so I didn’t go into the water. When one of the group members returned to change his GoPro battery, I went back out with him, and, boy, did it ever work out! I was only in the water for minutes before the baby turned towards me. Holding up my GoPro, I watched as it became visible in the water and slowly swam straight towards me. As it passed by, I almost wet myself when I looked down to see a giant mama whale right under me moving in stealth mode! Yeowza! Slowly, she came to the surface to join her baby, and off they finally went. FYI, as far as these large, baleen whales go, the females grow larger than the males.
On Day 4, we saw lots of whales, but none were resting, and so, every time we got into the water, they would move on. Same with Day 5 until the last 15 minutes when we came upon a cow/calf pair. Right in front of me, I saw mom and baby doing a corkscrew to the surface that was like a beautiful ballet. I held out my GoPro, pressed “Record,” and a red banner popped up across the top. I didn’t have my reading glasses on, so I couldn’t read the message, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t recording. I wanted to cry. Others in the group got the most amazing photos of this cow/calf pair, and I had nothing.
Determined to up my odds and not leave on a downside, I signed up for the extra day, which was Day 6 of swimming. Although we still saw a few whales, including a baby that breached about eight times, all the whales were moving, and we couldn’t get into the water until the last half hour or so when we came upon a singer. I could hear the whale singing from the boat, but, getting into the water three different times, we couldn’t see it. My only great photo op on Day 6 was returning to the harbor to see a rainbow across the lush, green mountains.
So that was Day 6 of whale watching and the end of my time on the water; however, there was more to explore in Mo’orea. On our first island day, we took a safari tour that was awesome! We went up Magic Mountain on a tiny two-track that sometimes dropped off on both sides to get a view of “the real Cook’s Bay” as well as another bay on the other side of the mountain. Sitting in the back of the truck, branches hit us, and I soon noticed they were filled with fruit, so we grabbed a mango and a couple of star fruit off the trees! I wish I’d thought to do that on the way up as well!
Our tour also took us to a sugarcane plantation and a pineapple plantation, where we got to taste and buy bottles of wonderful pineapple wine to bring home. We also went to a botanical garden where we saw all kinds of exotic fruit being grown such as soursop, noni, star apple, persimmons, and more. They also had an enclosed vanilla farm. If you’ve ever bought a vanilla bean in the States, you know they’re crazy expensive! They’re like the cocaine of bakers. They were much less expensive here and fresh, so we bought some of those to take home.
The last stop on the safari tour was at a 400-year-old temple that was basically a low stone wall with some chestnut trees growing inside it. The wall was meant to keep the women and children out while still letting them observe what went on. The temple activities included human sacrifices, and we saw the raised stage area where the sacrificial acts occurred.
On our last day of the trip, we had hoped to hike Pierce Mountain. It’s the highest of the crazy-steep mountains, and it has an eye hole at the top. I heard from our safari guide that the trail was difficult to find, so I tried to find a hiking guide. The guides were not available until two days after we left, and it rained the day before, so it would be slippery. Instead, we found a guide to take us to the waterfall located part of the way up Pierce Mountain, which I was very anxious to photograph.
A few pro tips for Mo’orea. Wild chickens are a thing. Even though the sun rises around 6:30 a.m., the roosters seem to think it’s up at 3:40 a.m. Don’t expect to sleep in. Wild pigs are the only other wild animal here. No monkeys.
It’s not recommended that you drink water from the tap, so you will need to buy a lot of water. Bring a refillable water bottle.
Our hotel’s food was subpar, so, after the first day, we had to venture out for all meals that were not supplied on the boat. The best place we found was a pizza place just a ten-minute walk away. They offered very unique pizza toppings, and my favorite was goat cheese and honey! I had that pizza three days of the trip and can’t remember the last time I’d eaten so many carbs.
It rained three out of eight days that we were there, so bring a light raincoat.
Lotsa mountains on this small island, so, if hiking is your jam, bring hiking boots and gloves for the ropes.
WiFi is spotty, even when sitting right next to the source, so don’t plan on connecting with the outside world unless your phone has an international plan. The first few days without internet are tough but, just like sea sickness, you will adapt.
The chocolate bars in the stores are European, the most popular being the Milka brand. They also sell Bounty bars, which were discontinued in the States over 25 years ago, so you can pick up this special treat here.
Every exotic fruit you can think of is grown here, and it’s fun to have someone who knows what they’re doing tell you how to eat the fruit. Hibiscus and many tropical flowers are easily found growing wild.
There is a cove referred to as Stingray City that allows you to snorkel with wild stingrays and sharks that hang out there. We did that. Most of the sharks I saw were black-tipped reef sharks, and it was kinda freaky to see them coming straight towards you and then turn away at the last second. I also got to pet a stingray, which was cool.
French is the dominant language here, and it’s really difficult to understand some of the locals, as I’m sure it’s difficult for them to understand us. If you learn some basic French before you arrive, it could help a lot.
Tipping is appreciated but not expected. We were told this by our cab driver on the first day when we tried to offer a tip that she didn’t really seem to want.
Mo’orea is three hours behind California time.
It’s fun to meet people with similar interests from all over the word in these tour groups, and maybe we’ll be Instagram connections for the rest of our lives. Maybe we’ll never see them again, but maybe, just maybe, our paths will cross on another adventure.
Swimming with whales was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I’m so thankful that I was able to enjoy and check off my goal list. I may do it again in the future, but I’ll shoot for a different location to explore when I do. I’ll need to keep that goal at the top of my list because I have a feeling that this activity may one day be banned. I saw many people disrespect the animals by getting too close and even sometimes touching them. As with anything, if the privilege is abused, it will be taken away.
Mo’orea was a great adventure that I’ll never forget. I stepped waaaay outside of my comfort zone to check swimming with whales off my bucket list, and it was worth it! Below are a few photos from the trip. I’ll post the videos of me swimming with whales, sharks, and rays on my Facebook Kristie Dickinson author page.
Time will eventually run out for all of us. May we all spend it not being big, fat chickens and following our dreams.
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