Once their mating and birthing season ends, they must travel back to their second home in Antarctica to find their main food source, krill. The humpbacks fatten up and put on enough blubber to sustain them for their round trip migration and the entire duration of their mating season.

A humpback breaching just off Tofo Beach. Photo courtesy of the research team at ODYSSEA.

This is why there is such a focus on responsible ecotourism around whale watching. While it is incredible to encounter these beauties in the wild, stressing them or chasing them causes them to exert precious energy they need to sustain themselves; especially humpback mothers who must generate 50 gallons (190 liters) of milk per day for their calves to put on enough blubber and gain the strength to make it back to Antarctica.

In the southern Indian Ocean, Tofo is a hot spot for humpback activity and for researchers studying and supporting them. We went out with Hanno from Liquid Dive to try our hand at photographing whale flukes (tails) and recording their songs. Each humpback’s fluke is unique and recording them is one method used by researchers like, Pierre Gallego, and his colleagues from ODYSSEA, to track the whales and their activity.

Hanno from Liquid Dive photographing a juvenile whale shark.

This was a day I will never forget. Humpbacks are shy and proved challenging to photograph, but we did witness a heat run of about four males pursuing a female just a few meters from our boat. Another whale dove past us when we were in the water, which was absolutely mind blowing. However, all of this came at the end of the day. Not just any day. The best day ever!

Dolphins!

The day began with a pod of fifteen dolphins rushing past us while we were snorkelling, which was incredible. I thought our luck had peaked, but it was not too long after that we realized there was a whale shark nearby. Look, I don’t know how your whale shark spotting has been going, but ours stinks, until now.