This Is Us

The Last Great Vacation

How a pre-pandemic whale swim brought me eye to eye with a humpback — and my own mortality

Photos courtesy of the author.

The whales are playing hard to get. It’s a sunny day off the coast of Vava’u island group, and my father, sister, and I have set off in search of humpbacks. The Tongan archipelago is known for a migrating population of over 2,000…