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Underwater cameraman Roger Munns set himself and his team an incredible challenge. In 2008, they set out to Tonga to film the biggest courtship ritual of the animal kingdom, the humpback heat run, for the very first time underwater and up close.

In the first few days, Roger had intimate encounters with humpback mothers and their calves. He captured their interactions, and marvelled at how gracefully they move their fins. But most of the time, he was sat on the back of the boat, next to his safety diver Jason. They spent 12 hours a day looking at the endless blue ocean, waiting to find a heat run. After two unsuccessful weeks, he started to wonder whether they would ever see one. He questioned whether this had been a good idea in the first place.

A few days later, somebody spotted a heat run, and everything sprang into action. Roger got in front of the whales, and dove down ten meters underwater on a single breath. From then on, his job was just to wait and hold his camera ready. In a moment that seemed to stretch out time, he waited, nervously, for a group of 40-ton bus-sized whales to speed past him…

Produced by Florian Bohr

Credits:
Humpback whale mother and calf sounds - Acoustic Communications CNRS team & CETAMADA
Humpback whale calf sounds - Lars Bejder (MMRP Hawaii), Peter T. Madsen (Aarhus University) & Simone Videsen (Aarhus University)

(Image: Humpback whale heat run with multiple whales in pursuit close to the ocean surface. Credit: Philip Thurston/Getty Images)