Humpback whale mom and her playful calf

We came across this very playful calf along with her very chill mother who hung motionless below us for almost 10 minutes while her calf played with us. A truly awe inspiring moment to be in the water with these animals and to find them just as curious about us as we are about them. In the video you can hear our shutters snap snap snapping away as we photographed the mom and calf, and about two thirds into the video you can hear the baby talking and also kozy's laughter out of sheer joy from watching as she filmed. We spent over an hour with this pair (and at the end of this particular swim with them a male escort joined them who was also relatively chill for an escort - he kept them moving a bit, but so slowly that we could still swim along side them for quite a while.

Off the island of Vava'u, Kingdom of Tonga Sept 9, 2011

This was the 34th calf that our guide, Tony Wu had identified in Vava'u this season (with both photo ID and GPS coordinates of first sighting). http://www.tony-wu.com/

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• humpback whale
• whale
• snorkeling
• calf
• underwater
• baby
• mother
• playing
• kozyndan
• Tonga
• Vava'u
• cetacean