20 WINTER2019 And so to the Tongan Beach Resort – pairs of rooms right on the beach, hammock suspended between two palm trees, open-air dining. I learned to refill the basin on the porch with salt water from the ocean to wash off sand. “If you use fresh water, the pigs will drink out of it,” a resort maintenance man told me. But I hadn’t come to see pigs. I came to swim with humpback whales – in all their 30,000kg, 16m splendid beauty. And for the next three days that’s exactly what we did. Each morning we’d divide up into two boats moored at the resort’s dock. We had been fitted with snorkelling gear; some of us had partial or full-body wet or sun/stinger protection suits. Our local skipper and guide took us out to areas where the whales had been seen or where they were known to congregate. Once we spotted them, half our group waited for the first prompt: “Get your gear on, and sit on the edge of the boat.” Whentheboatwasinpositionascloseaspossible to the whales, we got the excited call from the skipper: “Into the water, into the water!” Escorted by the guide we would head over toward the whales. Typically we’d spot a mother (the size of a school bus) below us, often with a calf which would playfully swim around us, sometimes breaking the surface of the water, sometimes just staying near its mother. Born three to four metres long and weighing 1,000kg, the ‘babies’ double in size in their first year – thanks to drinking 600 litres a day of their mother’s milk. What an amazing experience, being so close to these gentle giants. I’d drifted away from the others in my group, so I had this particular mother and baby all to myself. I just floated face-down in the water, motionless, as the baby swam around the mother whose bulk almost filled my field of vision, she was that close beneath me. Back to the boat we went after about 10 or 15 minutes so the other group could have a turn swimming with the whales. We often saw the whales breaching. At one point two whales swam along near our boat, slapping the water with their five-metre flippers at exactly the same time in a demonstration of perfect synchronised swimming. I didn’t get to hear the male whales singing live but one of our group recorded their song from his boat – a variety of sounds that scientists guess might be meant to attract mates. We swam with the whales for three days, each experience different from the other. In the evening Stanford marine biologist Prof. Stephen Palumbi told us all about the humpback whales and how Tonga is one of the few places in the world where one can swim with them before their annual 7,000km summer migration to Antarctica. We shared photos, we shared videos, we shared our delight at having been part of this unforgettable adventure. But now it was time to leave Tonga and the whales, to go up into the mountains on the other side of the world, to hike Switzerland’s snowy peaks in the northern hemisphere summer. I had heard of up-market St. Moritz where the wealthy came to play. But I chose Sils Maria, a tiny village just a couple of lakes away, with a permanent population of only 750. They say you can’t go back. And sometimes that’s true, when the new experience fails to live up to memories of the original. But revisiting Sils Maria’s top-ranked Hotel Privata just seemed to get better and better each time, like a fine wine. The building was born in 1630 as a farmhouse. In its present reincarnation, the hotel will be celebrating its 100th birthday in 2021. Fourth generation Corina Giovanoli has run the hotel since 2008. And I’m sure keeping it all in the family has ensured the hotel’s quality, popularity and success. And so I did go back again: my fifth visit to the hotel. I have always enjoyed Switzerland’s early summer with snow still on the mountain peaks yet fields of fragrant alpine flowers at the lower elevations. Hotel Privata even has its own exquisite garden, carefully and lovingly tended by Corina’s mother Ursula. The extra touches made all the difference: French service at dinner, with seconds if I was still hungry; instantly changing a reserved seat in the restaurant to a better position when a special friend showed up unexpectedly; mending a torn shirt pocket; complimentary afternoon tea in the garden with a sweet treat and perhaps home-grown rhubarb. Another advantage of visiting the Engadin area in summer is the valuable pass I received for staying more than two nights, giving me free travel on bus, train and most importantly mountain gondola, railway and chairlift. WE SWAM WITH THE WHALES FOR THREE DAYS, EACH EXPERIENCE DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER