Swimming with humpback whales in Moorea, French Polynesia

Why Mo’orea?

One of our bucketlist items has been to swim with humpback whales ever since we saw The Bucket List Family do it. So in planning our 10-year anniversary trip for 2023, that had to be top of the list.

We first started looking at Tonga, where The Bucket List Family went, but it was still reeling from the volcano eruption in 2022. So we decided to do a lot of research of our surrounding south pacific islands. The one that kept coming up to the top of the list was Mo’orea, French Polynesia.

Mo’orea is a small island just north of Tahiti and its capital city of Papeete. Humpback whales can be found near outer reefs of Moorea from July to early November, when they are looking for a mate or nursing their young. It doesn’t have as many tourists other popular islands and pretty strict regulations on not chasing or getting boats too close to the whales. After reading a lot of reviews we decided to book a trip to Moorea in the prime month of August and chose a small, owner-operated private boat company called Blue Invitation, ran by Fanny and Pierre.

Travel troubles

Sorting childcare for 4 kids for a week is never an easy task, but luckily, one of Leslie’s old roommates said she would fly in from the States to do it for us. We paid for her ticket and she and Leslie did a few day road trip from Auckland to home, hitting a bunch of fun New Zealand sites along the way. Once they got back into town we quickly packed and left.

Unfortunately, due to some last minute running errands, we made it to our first Napier to Auckland flight 2 minutes after they closed check-in and I had forgot to check in the night before 😭. Suddenly, before our trip had begun, we were about to miss the whole thing.

Air New Zealand’s next flight was in an hour but the problem was that it would land as bag check in would end for our Air Tahiti Nui flight, which was one hour before departure. Thinking all was lost, we frantically looked for alternative flights but nothing lined up with our schedule except one route through Australia that would cost a few thousand more last minute. It was looking pretty hopeless.

We still boarded that next flight and by the grace of a higher power, our arrival time changed to be 15 min earlier than scheduled, and with that, a glimmer of hope appeared. We still had one obstacle left. To get from the Auckland domestic terminal to the international terminal you could either take a bus that leaves every 15 min or walk about a kilometer path between them. Not knowing if the bus timing would line up, the plan was that I would sprint the distance as fast as I could go and Leslie would follow as close behind as possible.

We landed and the cabin crew graciously allowed us to get off first. I hit the ground running. Our luggage consisted only of two Nomatic backpacks, the best luggage we have ever owned, so running was possible, but not easy. I got to the terminal 2 min early and I searched for the Air Tahiti counter. As I ran up, the lady at the counter commented, “Wow, I was just about to click the close button”. We made it! But then she said that we needed Leslie to be there to finish. I frantically looked around the terminal and spotted her just walking in (she thought we had missed it, arriving too late). I jumped up and down yelling “Leslie, Leslie” and she ran promptly over. We then slightly jogged through security and made it to our gate with actually about 15 min to spare, crashing to the floor exhausted.

Arriving in Papeete

The focus of the trip was to see the whales in Moorea so we only booked one night in Papeete. Best place to stay close to the airport is at the Tahiti Airport Hotel. You can walk there from the terminal in just a few minutes, though you do have to climb a few stairs. If you have luggage you can get a taxi to take you, no problem, but you do need to grab cash from the airport ATM (there are several to the right as you leave the terminal). Many places in Moorea/Tahiti only take cash, so it’s a good idea to withdraw cash from an ATM.

The next morning we caught a fast Terevau ferry to Moorea. I bought two round trip tickets from their website and had the QR code saved in my iphone wallet, but it would have been just fine to purchase the day of at the ferry.

The profile of Mo’orea is beautiful

From Ferry to Beach

There are a lot of taxis on Moorea but it is a big enough island and places are spread far enough apart, that it just made sense to rent a car. Many of the taxi reviews said that it could be 20+ min wait for a taxi, especially during busy hours. I rented from Avis well ahead of time, but there are several rental agencies near the ferry that are reasonably priced and just a quick walk. The one warning we got was not to park under a coconut tree as damages from those were not covered by insurance!

Our check-in time wasn’t until 3pm so we decided to go straight to a beach. Temae beach was just a short drive from the airport and had nice changing rooms and bathrooms. It is one of the best snorkel spots, but you do need to get out a decent way from the beach towards the outer reef.

Our Temae beach snorkel path, credit: Google Maps

The water is so clear and there are brightly colored reefs once you get out to a couple meters depth. The current is pretty strong at times, so best to swim north up the beach then drift down. It wasn’t super strong when we went, but you will definitely want fins. If it pulls you a bit too far you can get out at the Sofitel Resort just to the south a bit.

Temae quickly became one of our favorite beaches

Hotel Kaveka

We initially looked around for an Airbnb near our whale swim tour but decided to book with Hotel Kaveka as it was one of the cheaper, highly rated hotels and had a restaurant on site.

It was the perfect size and had a really nice private lagoon beach with lots of fish - it would be great for kids to snorkel.

We ate a few times at the Kaveka restaurant and really enjoyed it. It was a bit pricier than some of the cafes around, but still reasonable.

Snorkeling off the wharf at night was beautiful in the sunset light.

French Influence

We knew it was French Polynesia, but we definitely weren’t expecting baguettes at all the stores first thing in the morning and all the wonderful french pastries.

our typical after-breakfast treat

Our favourite place for breakfast was a little bakery up the road called Caraméline. It had fresh pastries each morning as well as more filling breakfast foods.

Swimming with Humpback Whales

Day 1

Blue Invitation is located on the northwest corner of Moorea near the Hotel Les Tipaniers. We ate a quick lunch a cafe near it but were a bit too excited to eat much.

We bought our own snorkel gear, our Cressi dry snorkel, masks, and our travel short fins. Pierre had wetsuits ready for us when we arrived as well as some long fins that we ended up using as they helped us move faster in open water.

Pierre decided to take us across the north face of the island all the way to the north east corner then slowly back.

There is a reef that surrounds most of the island, creating the beautiful lagoons to snorkel in, but the whales stay outside of it. We left the lagoon for open ocean and stayed within a couple kilometers of the reef slowly moving up the coast. We would stop ever so often for Pierre and his co-pilot Te Mana to watch for whale spouts and also checking their radio from other guide.

We found a whale spout pretty quick and followed her around at a safe distance, but we are not allowed to stop and get in while a whale is moving, it has to be completely stopped.

We heard soon on the radio that another guide had found a young humpback whale sleeping alone near the surface so we left the whale we were following and hurried over. We waited just a bit to make sure it was safe for both us and the whales and then we jumped in with Pierre.

I have done a lot of snorkeling in both San Diego and Hawaii in anywhere from 1 meter to 30+ meters, but you could always see the bottom. It was surreal to be in open ocean and only see blue as far as the eye could see both below and around us.

We were grateful for the long fins to keep up with Pierre in the water. We swam out towards the spot but couldn’t see the young whale. After just a few moments Pierre pointed down excitedly and we saw him slowly rising up from the deep. He was still asleep and was rising tail first to the surface, almost vertical. Pierre said this was very uncommon behavior, they would usually go head first.

Our first, and closest whale encounter

He settled at the surface asleep but I think I might have woken him when I went above water to take a picture up top. He gave a little stir, opened his eyes looking directly into what felt like my soul, and gave a little tail flick swimming towards us then diving down once more.

Being that close to such a magnificent animal and then having it stare at you with its intelligent eyes was a life changing experience.

We started heading back to the boat when some snorkelers from another boat started pointing excitedly and three more whales appeared moving rather quickly beneath us!

We watched in awe as they passed and then continued back to the boat. Pierre said that one of them was the whale we were following earlier. Climbing aboard we sank back into our seats quite tired from the 20 min swim but feeling energized.

Pierre took us slowly home looking for other opportunities in the last hour and a half but ended up heading back finding nothing to stop at.

Day 2

One thing that set Blue Invitation apart from other companies is that they try to get out an hour earlier than other tour companies in the morning and in the afternoon. So we pulled in a few minutes before 7am to get started the next day.

This time we went west around the northwest corner of the island and then headed south. We saw a beautiful spotted eagle ray as we were pulling out of the lagoon but most of the rest of the morning went so slow. We did happen upon a mother and calf, but she wasn’t too excited when we got closer and moved away rather quickly.

It was less than an hour left on the tour and we had only gotten in the water once with the shy mother whale, so we were a bit disappointed. It was then that a radio message came in that there was a mother whale not far away with a calf and another escort whale.

This mother whale was not shy and was pushing the baby up towards the surface and even towards us like she was showing him off. The baby did approach us but never ventured far from the mom. We swam close by watching him play around his mother. Down far beneath us, where I couldn’t get, a good shot, lurked the male escort whale. He was the biggest humpback I have ever seen. Could just see him moving ever so slowly.

After several more boats pulled up to put in more snorkelers we decided to leave. As we drove away, the escort whale suddenly breached behind us with a massive splash.

We were very grateful to Pierre and Te Mana for helping us cross off our bucket list item in such an amazing way. You could tell that they both loved and respected the whales.

Night Snorkel

After a few hours of relaxation from our swim with the whales, we ventured out after dinner to do one more paid excursion back at Temae beach, a night snorkel.

With our provided underwater flash lights, we went all around the outer reef and saw parrot fish, lion fish, crabs, and even a black tipped reef shark that kept coming around to check on us. It was one of the more interesting snorkel tours I have been on, highly recommend.

Last day

With only one day left and needing to catch the ferry at 4pm, we still decided to cram in a few last minute activities. We initially wanted to go to a shark and stingray snorkel spot just a few minutes boat ride from Les Tipaniers but we didn’t want to book a few hour tour to do so. I saw we could rent kayaks at Les Tipaniers, so we walked in and a nice security guard let us pass to go their private beach even though we weren’t staying there. Unfortunately all the kayaks were rented that morning, but we secured one for 1pm.

Pineapple Fields

Having switched the order of our day, we headed off to the center of the island to see the famed pineapple fields and play at the zipline park.

The fields are amazing, but be warned, you will have to drive very carefully if you are in a rental as it is a bumpy dirt road.

Tiki Parc, Zipline and Aerial Adventure

In the center of an island there is a pretty nice zipline park. They have all different levels from ground-level kids’ paths to 20 - 30 meters in the air. After a quick training session of how to move our safety line through the course, Leslie and I did a few of the adventures. There were not only ziplines, but rope ladders, tightrope walking, and more.

Sharks & Stingrays

We headed back to Les Tipaniers after lunch to get to our double kayak and paddled out. It was a good 10 - 15 min paddle, which left us about 30 min there for our 1-hour rental. It was definitely worth it as this was the closest we have been to sharks. There was a nice rope area to tie up the kayaks, though a bit tricky as it was like chest deep water.

They were mostly black tipped reef sharks and came quite close but mostly just ignored us. A tour company pulled up shortly after we arrived and began to feed the stingrays which brought quite a few out.

Business class surprise

We took the ferry back later that day to stay near the airport, leaving first thing the next morning. I had one more surprise up my sleeve as I had put a couple hundred dollar bid in to get upgraded to business class for the flight back and we won! Such a different experience to flying coach and was the perfect ending to our 10 year anniversary trip.