When A Giant Whale Refuses To Leave A Diver Alone, She Realizes He Is Trying To Communicate With Her.

Whales, despite their enormous size, are among the most mysterious and poorly understood organisms on the planet.

We humans are mesmerized by the juxtaposition of their massive size and usually calm, serene nature. Despite our continuous attraction to these captivating marine mammals, there is still much we don’t know about their behavior and biology.

A dramatic interaction between a seasoned marine biologist and a humpback whale in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific helps to highlight just how much we still don’t know about these gentle giants – and has sent shockwaves throughout the scientific world in the process.

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Nan Hauser 

Nan Hauser, a 63-year-old marine researcher, has dedicated her life to studying, researching, and assisting whales.

She was born in Maine and has spent the last three decades traveling the world to chronicle and preserve as many whales as she can by campaigning for their rights and protection.

Swimming with whales regularly is one of the pleasures of this line of work, but while she was used to paddling alongside these aquatic monsters, nothing could have prepared her for what would happen on this particular routine swim.

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Her Routine Swim

Nan was swimming off the coast of Rarotonga in late July, accompanied by a research vessel and under the watchful eye of her colleagues. They were tracking her progress by eye and with a drone.

Nan was filming her swim near a small pod of humpback whales with a waterproof camera.

A male humpback whale, perhaps weighing over 23 tonnes and measuring at least 50 feet in length, began swimming toward her as she was shooting.

Nan was well aware that this was not typical conduct.

Unusual Behavior

While swimming with whales, Nan is usually the one that approaches the animal to watch its behavior. But something was different this time. She recognized she wouldn’t be able to avoid the monster as it approached her, and as it drew closer, she wouldn’t be able to get out of its way.

She continued to picture the whale, focusing her optics on it as it approached head-on. She had no idea what it was up to, but she was unconcerned for the time being. That, however, would soon change.

Something isn’t right.

Nan is perhaps the most knowledgeable person on swimming with whales. It’s an important aspect of her job, and something she’s done hundreds, if not thousands, of times over her career as a conservator and marine biologist.

So she realized she was in trouble when she was perplexed by the whale’s conduct.

The closer the whale got, the more obvious it became that something wasn’t right.

Whales generally swim by humans, oblivious to their presence. But this one had his attention fixed on her and was heading towards her in a straight line.

He didn’t stop even after slamming into her and pinning her on his head.

The Fight for Her Life

The whale continued to slam against Nan as she tried to flee, forcing her further and further away from the boat.

Nan tried to go to one side, then the other, but the whale seemed adamant about not letting up. She couldn’t do anything. Despite her years of working with whales, she had never heard of anything remotely close to this, much less experienced it herself – not that she could think of anything else to do. Even if the whale didn’t want to hurt Nan directly, the force of its motions was enough to cause pain.

The Power of a Whale

Nan knows everything there is to know about whales. As the whale kept pushing her through the water, she realized how damaging a misstep or a  powerful push could be to her body.

A moderate impact from a humpback whale might break bones and harm her internal organ if the animal kept acting the way it did.

Nan was terrified of something else the whale could do.

Keep your distance from the sides.

Nan was being driven by the whale’s head, but she was aware that one false move could place her in the path of the whale’s other, far more hazardous and strong appendages: his flippers and tail.

Even while humpback whales aren’t known for being violent, they are powerful animals and one wrong move, an unintentional hit by a flipper or tail, may knock Nan unconscious and leave her to die.

But, even as Nan knew how terrible her position was, there was always hope. She was putting together a strategy.

Maintaining Her Calm

Because humpback whales don’t have teeth but instead have sheets of soft baleen in their mouth, staying near the whale’s head was probably the safest place for her to be.

Despite this, Nan knew she needed to get as far away from the whale as possible.

Nan had to remain as calm and collected as possible to accomplish this. However, if the whale detected any change in her behavior, he might adjust his own, something she wasn’t ready to risk.

A Terrifying Situation

Nan is terrified of spiders, as everyone who knows her knows. She loves to joke that while she is fearful of a small, delicate animal that she can simply sweep away with her fingers, she is not afraid to swim with large, powerful marine animals that could easily crush her if they so choose.

Nan was still terrified at this moment, tied to the head of an unpredictable humpback whale.

Everything she knew about whale behavior told her that what she was seeing shouldn’t be happening – but was she alone in her experience? or might her fellow passengers on the boat sense something wasn’t right?

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