One of the highly recommended activities in Moorea was Dr. Poole’s eco-friendly dolphin tour. I love dolphins and have always been curious about them, so this was one of the few activities I made sure we signed up for. About two weeks before we left I emailed Dr. Poole (an American biologist living in Moorea) myself, and had a dialogue with him about the trip, and about Dan’s work at Liquid Robotics—since ocean vehicles and ocean data might be relevant to him.
I was all ready to see dolphins, but as it turns out, Dr. Poole is a whale guy. So if you go on this tour, be ready for him to be single-mindedly focused on conducting whale research during the “tour.” (This was totally ok with me, helping a marine biologist collect whale skin all morning is a pretty cool experience.)
Dr Poole was one of the people responsible for saving Humphrey the Whale back in the 80’s (a story that made a huge impression on me as a child) and he also is responsible for turning French Polynesia into a protected whale sanctuary, so he really knows his stuff and is a cool person to meet.
We never saw dolphins, but we did spend the better part of the morning with a 60,000 lb humpback whale, her baby, and an escort whale. (And to illustrate just how ridiculous these animals are . . .)
Dr Poole warned us that we might not have a chance to get into the water, that his tour is more about education and observation. I was prepared for a morning of whale watching, but about 10 minutes after leaving the lagoon Poole stops, and says “Ok—who brought their snorkels?” (Another travel tip—buy and bring your own snorkel to French Polynesia, and keep it with you . . . you never know when you will have the chance to swim with some crazy animal.)
The visibility wasn’t great, but I climbed in with my snorkel and swam over to where the guide was at. All I could hear was how loudly I was breathing into my snorkel. It was a mix between being cold, excited, and terrified.
I wasn’t sure how I’d know when I had reached the whale, and suddenly I realized that the big dark water was a shape—that I was looking at the whale already. And then it moved, and I saw the white belly, and the tail with the spots on it, about 20 feet from where I was treading water. Unfortunately, the guide in the water was already waving us back because some idiot had tried to swim too close to the whale, and he had to grab her by her foot and drag her back. Another guy was splashing all over the place like a drowning fish, which attracts sharks.
We got two other opportunities to go into the water, both of which were short-lived due to the other idiot tourists’ inability to chill out (on a boat with 12 tourists, there were about 10 too many.) Eventually the three whales took a nap, and we cruised around for awhile and came back in. But for the first half of the entire trip, that experience stuck with me as the highlight of the trip. Being able to get so close to such massive creatures feels like an opportunity few will have, and I feel really special that I was in the right place at the right time.
