Song of the Whale Diary: 9th - 13th September

Tuesday 9th September
Wednesday 10th September
Thursday 11th September
Friday 12th September
Saturday 13th September

Tuesday 9th September
Written by Tim
Today we are in the harbour of Machico at the SE of Madeira. This is a day of a partial crew change with Claire, Matt and Richard leaving while Claudia Ribeiro (from the Madeira Whale Museum), and Rosa Pires and Carolina Santos (from the Service Parque Natural da Madeira) join us tomorrow morning. The main priority for the day is to make repairs to the high-frequency hydrophone array so that we are able to leave for fieldwork tomorrow; we also need to catch up on washing and provisioning, which always takes more time than you think. While Tristan spends another day in the workshop working on a new joint on the hydrophone tow cable I head into town to visit kitchen/hardware shops to find appropriate bits and pieces from which to construct a mould so that we can encase the new joint in “potting compound” (polyurethane compound to insulate the electrical connections from the seawater) – some kitchen funnels and a drain pipe, once crudely fashioned, fit the bill. So after a late finish we are ready for departure tomorrow.

Wednesday 10th September
Written by Astrid
The weather forecast is okay, but the wind is supposed to increase later in the day. We have roughly two days for survey and maybe a visit to Ilhas Desertas on one of the evenings. At the moment there is a representative from the Service Parque Natural da Madeira (Rosa Pires) on board, so we do not need a permit to go on land this time. After the safety briefing to our new three “crew members” and the clearance at the Marina, we head off to sea for a short fieldwork period. At the 500m line, just out of our harbour Machico, we deploy the 200m hydrophone and head Southwest towards Funchal, to do some zig zag tracks in the shelter of Madeira island. Later in the day we head off to Carga da Lapa (known as Baixio Doca by the Madeiran people) on Ilha Deserta Grande. In the pilot book it says: “one of those places which many yachtsmen will want to visit simply because so few actually do”. And it is something special. After arriving in a little bay, the local rangers pick us up with their dinghy and we have an (unfortunately short) look around. Matt and I stay onboard to do the anchor watch and some repairs and to have another go at getting the generator working again. The tasks are completed successfully, when the rest come back from shore and we have dinner together. From the comments of the shore party it sounds like it would be definitely worth going ashore there again.

Thursday 11th September
Written by Nienke
Leaving the beautiful anchorage place in the protection of Island Desertas Grande, the day starts very grey and cold. Heading for the zig-zag transect south of Madeira island, conditions improve significantly; the sun takes over the sky, and temperatures rise to above 30 degrees. Contrary to the weather forecast, the wind and sea conditions are very good, so we are ready for lots of animals! The first sighting is of a big turtle, of which we haven’t seen one before in the Madeira Archipelago. Considering the almost flat sea, one might think that it would be easy to see any whales or dolphins, but actually, the next sighting is of a shark, also the first one for us to see in this area. In the afternoon, we are surrounded by pilot whales, which we see during several of the zig-zag lines. We decide to make a short stop to make ID-pictures; only a short delay in our continuing quest for beaked whales. Soon, not only a large group of pilot whales, but also few common dolphins are around. Later, we head further offshore for a nice cooling down in the water. In the evening, we sail towards the harbour of Machico as conditions are starting to follow the predicted forecast. Because we have people from Parque Natural de Madeira on board - who are involved with the endangered monk seals near the Desertas - Tim shows a presentation of the monk seal project that IFAW/SOTW took part in while in Morocco/Mauritania a couple of years ago.

Friday 12th September
Written by Nienke
Today, we go out to sea to test the repaired new hydrophone. New crew are arriving in the afternoon, so we only have the morning for research and testing. Leaving the harbour is a bit difficult, for 3 French boats - which have attached to us during the night - do not fully cooperate in the whole ‘leaving-early’ procedure. At sea, the hydrophone seems to work better than it has in days! All the previous enormous amounts of work on it seems to have paid off! Although the weather is actually too bad for official observations, and people cannot stand on the observation platform, we still see a huge group of common dolphins. Around midday, we head into port and after a communal lunch, we all start cleaning the ship thoroughly. We only take a short break when Bridget and Olly (see meet the team) and Stefan and Andreas (filmmakers from Germany) arrive, but the rest of the time we keep on going until far into the evening. Luckily, also the temperature drops so the temperature inside the boat is not unbearable.

Saturday 13th September
Written by Olly
Unfortunately, Tim and Tristan are leaving us today to return to the UK. However, before they go they have a chance amid the manic packing to bring the newly arrived team members up to date with recent events. Although they are both leaving, by midday we have our final two crewmates for this week. Aidan and John Hetherington from the UK were fortunate enough to earn passage on Song of the Whale for a week having won a competition designed to highlight the difficulties involved in counting whale numbers at sea. After a thorough safety briefing we slip the lines and head southwest for the bustling coastal metropolis of Funchal. This short journey gives us all a chance to find our ‘sea-legs’ and test various pieces of equipment particularly our quarrelsome hydrophones. All seems to be working well (including the sea-legs!). We arrive at our anchorage at midnight; there is little wind so hopefully we should have a quiet night.