Song of the Whale Diary: 31st October - 5th November

Friday 31st October - Monday 3rd November
Tuesday 4th November
Wednesday 5th November

Friday 31st October – Monday 3rd November
Written by Tris
As the boat plunges northwards over the 43rd parallel my mind returns to what seems a world away now; that balmy evening as we glided over 38 degrees North on our approach to the mid- Atlantic paradise of Faial in the Azores. Unfortunately the spare autopilot parts take a few days longer in arriving than we had hoped, and so we have a very pleasant long weekend in Horta. Snorkelling is enjoyed, the Faial film festival is attended, Claudia and Marco are seen again, and a moped tour of the island is embarked upon. Sadly, Nienke has to fly back home unexpectedly and she is very much missed; we hope to see her again back in the UK as soon as possible. Magnus and David also get a chance to make an assault on the 2300m-high summit of Pico, setting a new IFAW record by reaching the top in 2 hours. Several repairs are carried out to the boat whilst alongside in Horta and by the 3rd November the autopilot parts have arrived. The forecast for the route North is favourable so we lose not a minute in getting the autopilot operational.

On leaving Horta, the route north takes us to the west of Sao Jorge and Graciosa. As we pass into the deeper waters around Sao Jorge island we deploy the 2 hydrophone arrays: the new mid-frequency array for general cetacean monitoring and also “old bluey”, one of the veteran arrays made mainly of blue cable, specifically for recording the lower frequencies associated with large ship noise. Recording different types of commercial ship traffic is one of our tasks on this passage back to the UK.

Tuesday 4th November
Written by Tris
First light today sees us motoring along in calm seas and we are really pleased when a light on the western horizon is revealed to be a cargo ship steaming on a very nearly parallel course to our own. Everything is perfectly set up for us to make a recording of this vessel; the only fly in the ointment is another freighter steaming the other way… meaning that our recording of the “target” might be contaminated by spurious vessel noise. However, we continue to run the procedure; the officer-on-watch of the cargo ship, when we contacted him via radiotelephone, was helpful and courteous – he advises us that he is Greek-registered and carrying coal to Dunkerque. We exchange pleasantries before bidding one another good passage.

Interestingly, a party of dolphins appear to detach from their escort duties as the freighter passes our bow and come to investigate the Song of the Whale for a few moments. Later as the wind increases we shut off the engine and pole out the genoa in order to run before the southerly breeze. The night brings rain in fairly large quantities, and a few more ships pass us by, both eastbound and westbound freighters. Being under sail (and hence fairly restricted in our abilities to manoeuvre) we do not attempt recordings of these vessels; indeed it is enough to maintain safe clearance given that the rain brings limited visibility.

Wednesday 5th November
Written by Tris
The wind has shifted into the north but by lunchtime has decreased and so we take in the sails and restart the faithful diesel. We are visited around midmorning by a group of fulmars – clear proof that we are heading for the colder waters of Northern Europe. These friendly birds – believed by many to be the reincarnations of old sailors – alight just downwind of the boat and cast their critical eyes over our rig. As well as these gregarious birds, there are a few lone shearwaters skimming around and the odd Leach’s Petrel.