Song of the Whale Diary: 18th - 23rd August

Monday 18th August - Thursday 21st August
Written by Nienke
Over the last few days crew have been arriving after having taking a holiday break and everybody is directly set to work. A lot of things need to be done before we are able to start our next trip from Lisbon towards Madeira. One of the most important, but also most time consuming jobs is the connection of our two new hydrophones, which finally arrive after a few months delay. With instructions from the home front, Claire and Tris do a very good job in getting almost everything working. Other jobs include the regular (safety) checks, replacing the ventilation hoses of the black water tank (which have to be replaced in the most hidden and most difficult to access places!), shopping and cleaning. After a small delay for fuel we leave the mainland of Portugal with lots of sailing wind, although very unfortunate for cetacean observations. On board we have visiting scientists from the Madeira Whale Museum: Luis Freitas and Catia Nicolau, and Monica Perez from SECAC (Society for the study of cetaceans of the Canaries archipelago). Reaching the deeper waters, we deploy the new hydrophone. Just in front of the coast, we are accompanied by two groups of common dolphins, but further off shore we only hear some faint whistles through the day. During the night, it is a challenge to meander our ship with a 400m hydrophone pulled behind her, between the many present big cargo vessels, but with the use of the radar, AIS and our eyes, all goes well.   

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Friday 22nd August
Written by Astrid
Yes, we are underway again and it takes some getting used to – especially when you come back from a nice holiday without movement, without spray water and lovely cups of coffee on several terraces in the sun... I think, though that we are all slowly “swinging into the boat rhythm” again and after some initial seasickness, everybody feels fine. From Lisbon we have had beautiful “sailing” weather, with sun shining during the day and the moon looking down on us at night, accompanied by thousands of stars, but unfortunately it is not good for cetacean observation. We are sitting in a stabile weather system with wind force 4-5 Bf from the North and with this wind direction we are able to sail our zig-zag-route over the seamounts down to Madeira. As a sailor I’m happy, but the swell is quite high, so the 2 to 3m “water walls” make it very difficult to see whales and dolphins behind them. We are observing from deck, because up on the A-frame it is too dangerous at the moment and we do see two small groups of common dolphins quite close to the boat. We are not hearing much on the new hydrophones at the moment. It seems that the beaked whales are all waiting for us to arrive in Madeira to start our fieldwork with them there!  

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Saturday 23rd August
Written by Luis
The weather is not getting better today. Still 2 to 3 metre swells and winds, which makes the task of spotting whales and dolphins very hard. In the morning a blow is seen from deck by Tristan, allowing us to hope that this might be a good day to sight these animals. Unfortunately that is not the case and only a couple of times do we hear faint dolphin whistles. Several cargo ships are seen coming from the East (Gibraltar  possibly, going westward. On the positive note the winds are allowing us to sail nicely in zig-zags towards Madeira and we have for several minutes, on two separate occasions, the pleasant company of a Castro’s Petrel and a tern flying gracefully around the boat and checking us out. The sun is very shy today warming us occasionally through a sea of clouds. The moon wakes up late in the night allowing us to admire in between the clouds the beautiful sky with its thousands and thousands of stars. Occasionally an airplane is spotted. Finally the moon shows herself and lights up the sea, offering us incredible scenery and allowing us to dream.   

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