Song of the Whale Diary-10th - 13th July 2006

July 10th - 13th 2006
Written by Greg Wetstone, IFAW US Director
Since they are the largest animals that ever lived, you might expect blue whales to show themselves rather boldly.  But they are modest animals, which tend not to readily display much of their bodies above the water.  Here in the windswept waters north of Iceland, their powerful spouts are often deflected by strong winds, leaving little immediate evidence of the powerful animals lurking beneath the waves.  But if you're lucky enough to get a close look, as we were on several occasions, you can see the silvery blue back of the whales as they surface.  And when the whales slightly arch in preparation for a dive, that immense back glides past and seemingly goes on and on and on.  Near the tail of the whale, an incongruously tiny dorsal fin breaks the surface, and then the whale is gone.  Blue whales do not typically display their fluke before diving the way humpbacks and sperm whales do, but that does happen on occasion, and we were lucky enough twice to see flukes clearly yesterday.

The Song of the Whale left Akureyri, on Iceland's north coast, first thing Tuesday morning and headed toward the waters of Grimsey Island at the boundary of the Arctic Circle.  The day began sunny and not too cold by Icelandic standards as we motored out of the fiord with a light tail wind.  When we left the shelter of the coast, however, the wind shifted dramatically, and the gentle tail wind became a strong head wind. We were following a deep trench many miles long in which feeding whales had been sited repeatedly in recent days, but we saw no signs of whales, though a white beaked dolphin did cross our path quite close to the bow.  The wind continued to increase and, faced with reports of a nasty weather front headed our way from Greenland, skipper Richard McLanaghan and mate Magnus Danbolt decided that our best course was to turn back toward South.  As we headed back Richard spotted blows in the distance near the coast southeast of us.  As we got closer, we became increasingly confident these were blue whales.

It took quite some time to get there, but the whales waited, and we had a lengthy encounter.  As the hydrophones recorded their deep vocalizations, the whales presented themselves very close to the boat and identification photos were taken that will be incorporated into an international database.  Identifying individual blue whales requires patience and expertise.  Individual blues with their slick sliver bodies are much more difficult to distinguish than, for example, the mottled humpbacks which typically have so many distinguishing markings. 

The blues brought good luck with them and the wind eased dramatically, allowing for a more extensive research effort.  Through the late afternoon and into the evening, Magnus and researcher Oliver Boisseau worked with Richard to deploy two small custom-designed drift buoys, each equipped with a hydrophone and a global positioning unit (GPS).  The buoys were positioned so that they, in combination with the hydrophone in our boat, could be used to more exactly determine the whale's positions by triangulation, and to better coordinate the whales' vocalizations with observations of their behaviour.  Very little is understood about blue whale vocalizations and the behaviours they are associated with.  In fact, scientists know surprisingly little about blue whales period.  Their behaviour, feeding and mating habits, communications, and migratory patterns are all poorly understood.  It took maybe an hour to recover the two buoys guided in part by a radio direction finder.  The data analysis is just beginning, so I cannot speak to what we learned or did not learn.  I can say that on inspection the buoys prove to be impressive pieces of clever handiwork.  My favourite part is the hand held GPS units enclosed in a sandwich bag and taped onto the plastic work case that carries the hardware for the hydrophone. (The units had to be carried outside the case to minimize interference with the GPS signal).

It was 11pm before the buoys were recovered.  But off Iceland, it was nowhere near dark by that time.  I stood watch until 1am and although it darkened a bit around midnight, it remained light the entire time.  The clouds put on a show unlike any I have ever seen, with sunlight filtering though several layers of clouds in one part of the sky, producing almost a halo effect, while in another part of the sky the clouds seemed to glow an iridescent blue.  We saw humpback whales around midnight, spouting behind the boat and readily displaying their characteristic backs above the water.  And shortly before I came in and warmed up at 1am we saw blue whales spouting in the distance on the port side.