Ascension

I remember dropping it off the back of the boat into relatively shallow water off the coast of an island. Resting peacefully along the bottom was a mother humpback whale and her calf. For almost ninety minutes, the mother remained motionless on the bottom, other than resurfacing every fifteen minutes or so for a breath.

All this time, her calf would cycle between the surface and her. The calf would frolic in the water around me, as it played. Eventually the little calf descended to mom where they both remained for about 10 minutes. As I tread water about thirty feet above them, I recall the calf just hovering above mom in a vertical resting position. Almost like the little whale was in suspended animation. Then, suddenly there was movement. The calf started to ascend to the surface. It reminded me of a balloon being tethered and then cut loose, the young whale slowly ascended from right below me.

As it slowly rose it was spiralling towards myself and the surface, everything seemed to be in slow motion to me. I recall locking eyes with the whale as it slowly hit the surface mere feet from me. Since I was so transfixed on the little calf, I had not noticed its bus sized mother also returning to the surface and she startled me a little as she surfaced right next to me! This is where we parted ways, rest time was over. With two pumps of her tail and her little one at her side, they both quickly and peacefully disappeared into the deep blue depths of the open ocean.

It is truly wonderful to know that while mom takes her time to rest up on the ocean floor, she has full trust in us up at the surface to keep her young one occupied for a while. Complete trust in her human babysitters that will bring no harm to her baby. It is said that humpback whales feed off the energy of those around them, I feel beyond privileged that the energy I give off is positive enough to have such long lasting and intimate encounters with these ocean giants.