Song of the Whale Diary: 24th - 27th August

Sunday 24th August
Monday 25th August
Tuesday 26th August
Wednesday 27th August

Sunday 24th August
Written by Monica
Another idyllic day for enjoying the experience of sailing in offshore waters, somewhere in the northeast Atlantic Ocean! Not much news onboard the SOTW today. Once again the forecast unfortunately is not great, so we keep on sailing, in-between huge masses of dark blue waters that, with relative frequency, swallow the deck of the boat! During the morning everybody is occupied with the many different tasks. At midday Nienke prepares some delicious crepes that we honestly appreciate! The afternoon goes by really fast, with some stimulating conversation, laughs and jokes on deck. Not many cetaceans really, just a sighting of two probably striped dolphins that appear like shooting stars in front of our bow for a few seconds at the last daylight hour. During the night, the “via lactea” illuminates the sky more than ever, what a cool moment!! “Buena proa” for tomorrow.  

Back to Top

Monday 25th August
Written by Magnus  
A slightly worse forecast for the day, predicting up to beaufort 7 gives us little hope for sightings today. A grey sky over a rough grey sea dogs us until the late afternoon. Then a miniscule ray of light penetrates the dark clouds and gives the illusion of daylight for a few hours before it gets properly dark. During the day we do have some acoustic detections from a small group of sperm whales and a couple of faint dolphin whistles. The only sighting of the day is a reminder of death, a dead loggerhead turtle drifting haphazardly with the Atlantic currents. Despite the harsh conditions and the seemingly lifeless sea, the spirit onboard SOTW is still high. Keen conservationists as we all are, we  remind ourselves that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.   

Back to Top

Tuesday 26th August
Written by Catia
Another wonderful day of bad weather! A lot of whitecaps and a really, really big swell. The day starts very grey, cloudy without a good sun rise and with a sighting of a dead loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) early in the morning, not a good way to begin the day….but fortunately we then see 3 more live loggerhead turtles, two very small, and the other one big. And then 3 sightings of dolphins. The first two are fleeting and we can't identify the species but the last sighting is spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis). The animals approach the boat and then disappear again into the wild sea. The clouds then go and we have a very sunny afternoon, the sun revitalising us with its warm energy. After a great dinner the stars appear in the sky, with a waning moon at the back, indeed an amazing perspective of how small we are in this world. Tomorrow the weather predictions are better, and we will arrive at Porto Santo Island known as the Golden Island because of the yellow sandy beaches. There, our quest to look for beaked whales will continue.  

Back to Top

Wednesday 27th August
Written by Claire
As predicted, we come to the end of our trackline today. When the timetabling takes place, some extra time is factored in for doing photo id of animals, or making beaked whale recordings, however since we haven’t seen any animals, none of this has taken place. Consequently we are arriving a few days earlier than planned. Rather than head straight in to Funchal, we head towards the island of Porto Santo – part of the Maderian archipelago.  The weather forecast for the next few days is rather better than it has been, and the plan is to do some circuits of the island – beaked whales have been sighted here previously. We reach the island in the early evening but have no sightings on the way in, although the view of the island is rather nice. Hopefully tomorrow the sea will be calmer.  

Back to Top