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

Thursday 10th July 2008
Friday 11th July 2008
Saturday 12th July 2008
Sunday 13th July 2008

Thursday 10th July 2008
Written by Katie
Today is sunny and fresh, with bright blue skies from the start. We are lucky to be joined again by renowned squid and sperm whale biologist Malcolm Clarke along with local whale watcher and boat driver for many film production companies, Joao. The day begins well with an early morning sighting of a group of short-finned pilot whales, which pass very close to the boat. We take the opportunity to take photos of the pod to build on our records for photo-ID, as well as enjoying the company of these amazing creatures. As morning turns to afternoon, the search for beaked whales continues in earnest.  A group of us are joined on the A-frame by Malcolm, who chats to us about his work as well as our scientific research, and invites us to visit his museum.  After several hours of searching, the binoculars reveal an approaching pod of Risso’s dolphins, which come right up to the boat breaching and splashing. We enjoy watching the dolphins breach whilst gathering more all-important snaps for our collection. The late afternoon is a scorcher with rough seas whipped up by a strengthening wind.  It becomes increasingly difficult to spot anything, and we retreat from the A-frame for a while until the swells begin to shrink again and the wind calms. Despite our best efforts we return to port just before 7pm without having seen any beaked whales. We head into shore to drop off our visitors, buy souvenirs and pick up a smiling Andrea, who is clutching her specially made tortilla. We return to the boat to enjoy our treat and then settle down for the night in preparation for another day of searching for the ever-elusive beaked whales!

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Friday 11th July 2008
Written by Astrid
The day starts with poor weather. Early in the morning the wind picks up. Most of the night we had a nice, windless anchor spot, but around 04:30 it starts to gust up to 20 knots. We head out east for a fieldwork day at 06:00. The weather forecast is getting more and more unfriendly and it is almost impossible to spot animals in the water. The swell too is getting too high with increasing winds. Our people on the shore station have similar problems and we decide to head off to Horta. On the way we get some very clear recordings of beaked whales on our computer software via our hydrophones. Our human ears are not able to hear the clicks, but our special software aboard is able to convert the high frequency clicks of the beaked whales into a noise, which we can listen to. Unfortunately we don't see any beaked whales in that area, so we are not sure, which species’ clicks we are listening to. We arrive in Horta at about 1600 and a big cleaning and tidying up effort starts. New shopping is done and we expect another person in the evening: Skipper Magnus is on his way to join us again. In the evening we go out for a kind of “welcome dinner for Magnus” and a “say good bye dinner for Bridget”. She will leave us early on Sunday!

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Saturday 12th July 2008
Written by Bridget
Today starts early with more cleaning as we have invited some important guests to join us on the boat today. Paulo Casaca is the Member of the European Parliament for the Azores, Joao Castro is the Mayor of Horta and Helder Silva is a Member of the Regional Parliament. Olly and Bridget first meet up with our three guests for lunch and then accompany Mr Casaca and Mr Castro to the boat. We are joined by the regional TV station, RDP Television who film the boat and interview Olly and Mr Casaca for a news item about our work that is broadcast in the evening. Thank you to all our guests for meeting up with us to find out about our work on beaked whales.

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Sunday 13th July 2008
Written by Nienke
We leave Horta and Bridget very early in the morning and head for the south-west coast of Pico, to the area where we recorded very clear beaked whale acoustics two days earlier. Unfortunately, the sea is still too rough for visual sightings, and no beaked whales are seen. However, while zig-zagging the area, several dolphin groups take a short break from their travel routes to check us out and do some bow-riding. We follow our course towards the south of Lajes, within sight of the land team. They see beaked whales from the shore. But again, we see the animals but do not obtain any sounds. With only a few days left in the Azores, we decide to spend the night travelling along the south-east coast of the island and in the channel between Pico island and the island of Sao Jorge. As before, we hear a lot of dolphins and sperm whales in and near the entrance of the channel, but no signs of beaked whales.
 
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