Being a diver means you get to go underwater and discover a whole new world. There is literally a different planet submerged under thousands of feet of blue salt water that most of us pay no mind to! We go about our every day on land, walking on our two feet attached to two legs with a warm-blooded body and lungs that breathe oxygen.
Meanwhile, with 70% of the Earth’s surface covered by ocean, it truly is a whole other world down there. It’s a mega network of ecosystems with a plethora of gilled, finned, scaled creatures that swim, glide, float and wiggle (coral kind of wiggles, ever so slightly, right?), that most of us have only ever seen in a textbook or a Pixar movie.
The moment you put on a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (scuba, in case you were curious!), and lower down into the water, you break the barrier. Everything changes, and if you don’t know, now you know! The second you dip below the water’s surface, you find yourself in a newfound kingdom. You’re in a new territory, filled with oddities to explore. There are sights to see, sounds to hear, and friends to meet. As curious as we are about animals, they too, are curious about humans.
It was 35-year-old Russian diver Mike Korostelev’s super lucky day when he got to meet perhaps one of the biggest creatures from the incredible underwater realm. He is on a photographic dive with a few fellow divers in Tonga, an island in the South Pacific. It was then that one particularly friendly humpback whale decided to show up for a playdate!
The gentle giant swims up from the depths of the water and gets right up close and personal to the diver. His gigantic pectoral fins are out, almost like he wants to give Mike a hug. They are quite literally face-to-face, only a foot or two away from each other. It looks like Mike’s flippers actually graze the whale’s underbelly at one point. They carry on swimming and enjoying each other’s company for minutes, while Mike’s colleagues record the event. It’s truly a spectacular moment, one every diver wishes to encounter!
Have you ever experienced like this? Tell us in the comments!
And, in the meantime, click the video below to watch Mike’s day go from just another dive to the dive he’ll never forget.
