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Laura's Journal
16th sept 06
We're now in Vava'u island group (north of tongatapu group) in the main town, Neiafu for a few days. Got here thursday and leave monday. so far its been ok, the first day was a bit boring as it was too late to get on any trips and theres not a lot to do in the town, but yesterday we went on a whale watch-which is the reason we came here, its one of 2 places in the world where u can swim with humpback whales. It was a nice day and we had a nice tourguide, we set off sailing through between beatuiful little islands and saw one whale on the way out to see which another boat was swimming with so we had to leave them to it. Someone on our boat spotted a couple more a bit further out to sea,so we were psyching ourselves up to swim but then happened to pass a swimming shark on the way!! arrr, its was only about 2m long but was pretty scary seeing one! anyway, we got to the whales and it was a mum and baby, we watched them for a while coming up and down to the surface but they weren't being playful so we left them alone.
(The boats will never chase them or hunt them down to make yo swim with them as its cruel so you have to wait for some that are willing to hang around before you can try, I checked with the lady who took us as otherwise I wouldn't have done it, u know me!)
Anyway, we trekked on quite a bit futher and the water got very choppy so it wasn't looking good, but then we came into a sheltered area and spotted another mum and calf and that was our chance! I was soo nervousalready! jimmy and some others went in first, they got in but the whales were to far away so they couldn't see them. Next it was me and robs turn, I was so scared, got in and got bashed around by the waves and current and couldn't see anything or stop thinking about the shark so i quickly swam back to the boat! Rob managed to see their tales, but jimmy had the best experience on the next go when they were about 1m away from them and the calf kept moving almost over them! I had 2 more attempts as the tour girl was determined to get some of us others to see them, but each time they were too far away,gutted! It finished off badly as the tour guide was in the water next to me and looked down and swore, I immediately swam as quick as poss to the boat as both myself and the others on the boat were convinced it was a shark! turned out just to be a lost flipper, but got my heart racing anyway! at least I can say I swam in shark infested waters and survived! lol. We still had a great day and got up close with such beautiful mammals, I got some great pics of the calf breaching(jumping out the water) which i will put on as soon as I find a good comp!
We haven't done a lot today as the weathers not been great,wet,windy and muggy, but tomorrow i'm off on a sailing boat for the day for a chilled out day, should be fun.
I'll write again soon,
Love to all, Lors x
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