MANY South Coast residents have an affinity with humpback whales but one recently had a rare and close experience with the giants of the sea.
Photographer Attila Bicskos from Tomerong captured this image while shooting in the waters around Tonga’s Vavau Island.
“That area is renowned for whales migrating, they come there and calve, then the calves stick around long enough to get enough food for the migration.
“There are only a few places on the planet where you can swim with the whales and I was there shooting stock photos.”
It is an area where organised tours take snorkellers out to the whales.
Mr Bicskos said the operations were owned by Tongans and were incredibly sensitive to the whales.
“They only allow four people in the water at once and they always have a guide with them,” he said.
“The other boats stop a good 800 metres away from the whale, they never approach the whales.
“You get in the water quietly, when I entered the water there was a whale and calf in the distance, the whale either decides to come and have a look at you or it doesn’t.
“In most cases they slowly kept on swimming past, I had a pod of six that were directly underneath me.
“I was the only one in the group wearing a full wetsuit and had a camera with an underwater housing that had a large dome at the front, so I looked different to the others.
“A female with calf came straight in and separated me from the group, she came so close that I had to swim away, she got so close I couldn’t take any more photos,” Mr Bicskos said.
“It was really close, she was so close in fact that I couldn’t kick my fins without hitting her.
“I didn’t know what to do, I had a camera in one hand and had to try to back paddle with the other hand, and not kick her.
“It’s probably the first time in 30 years of diving when I didn’t know what to do,” he said.
“When you have a 14 plus tonne animal moving near you, you feel so insignificant, we are nothing.
“She just rolled to the side and looked at me, which was when I discovered that humpbacks have got distinctly blue eyes.
“I was told the calf was only two days old and the mother was lifting it to the surface, teaching it to breathe.
“It was a really interesting thing to do. I’d list it in the top five of the most exhilarating things I’ve done underwater.”
Mr Bicscos is president of the Jervis Bay Regional Alliance, chairman of the Marine Park Authority Advisory Committee, and a representative of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW.