Tonga is a five-and-a-half-hour flight from Sydney or a three-hour flight north of Auckland. Either way, from the moment you land at 鈥渟mall is beautiful鈥� Fua鈥檃motu International Airport, it鈥檚 a fascinating, friendly world.
Tonga is the last remaining monarchy in the South Pacific.
Unparalleled Journeys, of Christchurch, New Zealand, which specializes in bespoke luxury travel in the South Pacific, had organized a trip for Stanford University Travel Study (although you don鈥檛 have to be an alum to travel with them).
Our Stanford group was honoured by having Her Royal Highness Princess Salote Mafile鈥檕 Piloluvu Tuita and her husband attend our welcoming dinner. She鈥檚 the sister of King Tupou VI.
Next morning we took the short flight to Neiafu on Vava鈥檜, one of the northern Tongan islands, where we stayed at the Tongan Beach Resort 鈥� pairs of rooms right on the beach, hammock suspended between two palm trees, open-air dining.
I learned to refill the basin on the porch with saltwater from the ocean to wash off sand. 鈥淚f you use fresh water, the pigs will drink out of it,鈥� a resort maintenance man told me.
But I hadn鈥檛 come to see pigs. I came to swim with humpback whales 鈥� in all their 30,000-kilogram, 16-metre splendid beauty. And for the next three days that鈥檚 exactly what we did.
Each morning we鈥檇 divide up into two boats moored at the resort鈥檚 dock. We had been fitted with snorkelling gear; some of us had partial or full body wet or sun/stinger protection suits.
Our local skipper and guide took us out to areas where the whales had been seen or where they were known to congregate. Once we spotted one or more whales, half our group waited for the first prompt: 鈥淕et your gear on, and sit on the edge of the boat.鈥�
When the boat was in position as close as possible to the whales, we got the excited call from the skipper: 鈥淚nto the water, into the water!鈥�
Escorted by the guide we would head over toward the whales. Typically we鈥檇 spot a mother (the size of a school bus) below us, often with a calf, which would playfully swim around us, sometimes breaking the surface of the water, sometimes just staying near its mother.
Born three to four metres long and weighing 1,000 kg, the 鈥渂abies鈥� double in size in their first year 鈥� thanks to drinking 600 litres a day of their mother鈥檚 milk.
What an amazing experience, being so close to these gentle giants. I鈥檇 drifted away from the others in my group, so I had this particular mother and baby all to myself. I just floated face-down in the water, motionless, as the baby swam around the mother whose bulk almost filled my field of vision, she was that close beneath me.
Back to the boat we went after about 10 or 15 minutes so the other group could have a turn swimming with the whales.
We often saw the whales breaching. At one point two whales swam along near our boat, slapping the water with their five-metre flippers at exactly the same time in a demonstration of perfect synchronized swimming.
聽I didn鈥檛 get to hear the male whales singing live but one of our group recorded their song from his boat 鈥� a variety of sounds that scientists guess might be meant to attract mates.
If you go:
