Song of the Whale Diary: 19th - 22nd June

Thursday 19th June
Written by Claire
We will be working in collaboration with a land station while we are here in the Azores, similar to the work carried out in El Heirro. The land station will be based on the island of Pico. This morning we get ready to leave the harbour and although the weather isn’t great, we head out. It is just a short trip of around 20 miles to the study site and when we get there we immediately start loading the equipment we have for the land station into the zodiac to be taken in to shore – the harbour here is much too shallow for SOTW. After 3 runs backwards and forwards with binoculars, tents and various other equipment, we are done, but the weather by this time is awful – 20+ knots of wind and heavy rain. For the work we need a flat calm sea – and what we have instead is a roiling mess, with the wind coming from the south-west. We also have nowhere to anchor for the night and so we make our way back to Horta, finally arriving at 2230, soaked to the skin!

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Land station Wednesday 18th – Saturday 21st June
Written by Nienke
The last few days I have joined the land team to help get everything started there. I did my final masters internship at Pico Island, and I am familiar with the island and village. Jonathan, Claire (a student from the University of St. Andrews), Patricia and me, left Horta on Wednesday in a rush. After arriving in Lajes via the beautiful mountain road across the island, we headed for Espasso Thelassa. ET is one of the whale watching companies based in Lajes. They have a vigia (a traditional lookout which was used in the past to look out for sperm whales for the whale hunters, but which is currently used to search for cetaceans for whale watching). After settling in, we checked the vigia, enjoyed the dinner at ET's restaurant/bar and on the way back to the lovely house, we were given a demonstration of traditional Azorean dancing. People of all ages were practicing for next week’s festival to celebrate the patron of the village. The land team will be trying to spot beaked whales and other whale and dolphin species for about a month. To do this we they need a lot of equipment, which was delivered by the Song of the Whale. The exchange occurred in bad sea and with rain and strong winds. Because of the collaboration with ET, we were introduced to Sidonio (the official lookout) and Hugo (who is learning to be a lookout) and we will work together with them in the vigia. Additionally, we were invited to follow the briefing they give before going on a trip, and several people from the land team had the opportunity to go out with ET, a trip with lots of (breaching!) sperm whales, striped dolphins, pilot whales, Risso’s dolphins, common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins! During the next three weeks the land team will consist of Jonathan, Patricia, Claire, Raquel (from the University of the Azores, where she performs photo-ID), Catia (from the Whale Watch Museum in Madeira) and Charles (also from St. Andrews). But, similar to our time in El Hierro there will be regular exchanges between the land and sea team. During the first days, we got everything organized, got familiar with setting up the equipment and how to use it, and made sure that everyone became familiar with the work protocol. In addition, we also had some time to enjoy some other activities, such as the Brazilian concert, watching the Euro-cup, early morning joggings, the French-cheese party at ET and some sight-seeing. Currently, I am back on the boat and hopefully, the weather (especially the wind and the sea conditions) will improve in the next days, so we will be able to detect beaked whales both from land and sea.

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Friday 20th June
Written by Olly
Today marks a day of great trepidation as I return to the Azores after a 12 year gap. The exhilaration of sweeping in to Faial’s Lilliputian runway is tempered by a nervous concern that these magical islands will have changed in recent years. I cut my teeth as a budding teenage biologist working through long Azorean summers on a whale watching boat; I have a fond memory of tracking a sperm whale with one hand on the ship’s wheel and one hand on a cup of coffee and deciding this was the life for me. And the coffee wasn’t even very good. Fortunately, I can report back that these mid-Atlantic islands don’t seem to have changed at all. The rolling verdant hills give the impression that Neptune has dragged a green quilt over the islands. Local lore has it that a discarded apple core will become an apple tree the following summer, and it is certainly easy to believe. Life continues at a leisurely pace here and there seem to be few new buildings. I rejoin the boat in Horta where it has been laid up for the day due to bad weather and am instantly reminded why the marina is such an important landmark for Atlantic sailing boats. The shelter of the breakwaters and spacious quays are decorated with a mosaic of paintings left by visiting vessels over the years. Although the more decrepit murals are often painted over by more recent visitors, I set out to rediscover the old paintings left from previous years including several visits by Song of the Whale in the 1990s.

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Saturday 21st June
Written by Filipe
Today we wake up and decide to leave Horta heading for the field work area off Lages. We leave Horta by 1200h after Richard takes care of the paper-work needed by the local authorities. We sail with the main sail and large genoa, with the engine off, across the south of Pico Island, enjoying the beautiful sight of the landscape, under light to moderate North winds. Since the weather is not too good to work from the land station, we try to look out for beaked whales from the SOTW (using two observers in the A frame)for most of the day. We also try to record clicks using the hydrophone. Unfortunately, neither visual nor acoustical surveys indicate the presence of the target species of this study, beaked whales. However, a lot of clicks from sperm whales, together with some nice breaching sightings buoys up the crew spirit! Also, we see a pod of common dolphins in the late afternoon.. We anchor in front of Lages harbour by 2130h right after dinner, and an hour later Richard and Doug go ashore to take some equipment that was missing to the land station. Another late night for them!

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Sunday 22nd June
Written by Claudia
Today we leave Lajes anchorage to do some work with the land station, as planned. We start around 8am and move towards the east side of the south of Pico and back again trying to find beaked whales. The land station gives us an idea of the area where they often see beaked whales and we start collecting acoustic data with transect methodology. We see a lot of sperm whales, sometimes with nursing calves, and groups of dolphins, which we are not able to identify. There are some whale watching boats nearby (a maximum number of three at any time). The sperm whales look like they are feeding and sometimes breach which is fantastic. Between 18:30 and 19:00 we pull in the hydrophone but unfortunately, we lose the depth sensor as we do so. Douglas manages to fix it so we will be able to collect acoustic data again.

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