Swimming with humpback whales and hearing their haunting songs is an experience to cherish. “The sound travels through the water for miles, through your body and into your soul,” says photographer Rita Kluge. “I got goosebumps. It’s something I’ll never forget for my whole life.”
Kluge has been fortunate to swim with the leviathans so often in the past year that she does a pretty great impression of their songs unprompted. She's spent hours with more than 1,000 whales throughout the South Pacific, often getting within just a few feet of them. “When a whale looks right into your eye, you feel serene,” she says.
She grew up in Neustadt, Germany, and didn't see the ocean until she was 18. Kluge fell in love with the sea 15 years ago after moving to Avalon, Australia, where she'd while away the hours snapping photos on the beach. She went snorkeling one day, and a "bus-length" whale rose from the depths to swim alongside her. That's all it took. She was hooked.
Kluge is a physiotherapist in Avalon but spends a month each year on Tonga, where she's a guide on a whale-watching boat during migration season. Humpback whales travel 3,000 miles north from Antarctica to mate and give birth. When the calves mature, their mothers lead them on the long journey home. She occasionally swims alongside them, her Canon EOS 5DsR in an Aquatica underwater housing, with a snorkel and fins.
The whales often find her as fascinating as she finds them. One once swatted her with its tail, giving her a good shove. "He was a bit cheeky, hitting my bottom," says Kluge. "But I think he just wanted to say hi.” That's an experience you'd never forget.
