[password] zara1010 [status] :position 20 55.428s 167 05.015e WOW! We've just had the most amazing experience this morning when we swam with a mother and calf humpback whale for the first time. The humpbacks come to the islands between Tonga & New Caledonia to give birth in the warm sheltered waters of the many islands, it's quite late in the season - but we were lucky, this morning we were told a whale was on the reef at the edge of the bay. It took us a while to spot the whale, she was lying very still with her dark fun protruding, almost like a log, and just the occasional blow as she exhaled, there was minimal movement, and no obvious sign of a baby from where we were. Si jumped off the dinghy and swam towards her a little, suddenly he said he could see the baby being supported horizontally across the mum's nose. After a while I got in too, and there it was - she was floating tranquilly, the baby resting across her nose, held towards the surface so it could breathe easily, she seemed to be almost stationery, or drifting backwards, flippers relaxed hanging out to the sides, one of them supporting the baby's tail as the rest of her baby is balanced over her faces, the calf's body covering one huge eye, the mum's tail hung downwards, flukes occasional flexed, perhaps reacting to the current. We watched from the side for a while, so still, peaceful and relaxed, mum and baby motionless - and us too as we hung in the clear warm water. Then we went around to the other side where we could see the mum and she could see us. The baby was facing us and watching too, three and a half pairs of eyes observing each other, us very aware of the size of this majestic animal next to us. Underneath was a dozen of more ramoras, tails wafting gently as they clung to the huge bulk above - reminding me of a big litter of hungry newborns hanging of the teats of a dog. Meanwhile the one big new baby sometimes got off and swam above the mothers head, finning energetically through the water, total length from mum's nose to her flukes, almost bath sized. Then they'd resume the resting pose and time would seem to stop. We spent a privileged hour or so with them, and left feeling quite awestruck that a wild creature would be so relaxed letting her new baby be watched by us for such a long time. [END]