Days 25 to 28
Day 25 Blue Whale Calling! (Written on Oct 22, 2013)
An ocean-wandering traditional Indonesian fishing vessel.
Photo credit M. Jenner
“Knock, knock”, soft taps at our door are Maria telling us she has heard a blue whale calling! We mounted a listening effort through the previous night, Inday listening from 9-12, Carrie 12-3 and Maria 3-6 and finally just near 6 sounds were heard! While at anchor, the girls monitored our ship-based, hydrophone looking and listening for low frequency blue whale calls using software gauged for detecting these calls.
At 10 to 6 in the morning, the first 5 calls were detected at 20Hz. What a civilised whale, well sort of. Actually, perhaps, really we just needed to get up one hour earlier not stay up all night… Anyway with quick preparing the team was assembled for deck viewing within 15 minutes. Curt and Maria checked the call signals while Inday and I settled on the top deck with bowls of breakfast and steaming mugs of tea.
We mobilised Whale Song by lifting her anchor, deployed a sonobuoy for call direction determination and then headed eastwards. Only one further call was heard once outside the channel while we drifted and monitored the ship-based hydrophone. With no whales sighted we decided to travel to the west to monitor in this region. While travelling back to the west, we zig-zagged close and then away from the reef, collecting bathymetry data to add to the GA (Geoscience Australia) dataset used as the baseline in the fish-finding software program, Piscatus. Once out west we drifted again, monitoring the hydrophone.
After oodles of noodles for lunch, we made our way back to the eastern part of the reef, all the while madly scanning for whales. After sunset, we chose a location with dense krill, dropping our net and collecting fish larvae, a ctenophore and one krill. As we were putting the samples in vials, our evening was about to change…
“Look over there” Simon called from the Portuguese bridge, “There’s lots of flashing lights, what is going on?” We realised very quickly, that the flashing lights were torches and possible explosions … we put the hydrophone in the water, fired up the computer and heard some interesting sounds. Perhaps, they are killing the reef again. Gathering information/evidence with the equipment, we were very concerned at the plight of this oceanic reef. We are still uncertain as to the activities that occurred. We had been noticing over the last few days that two or three small kayaks were associated with each “mother vessel”, being the traditional sailing vessels. These are hardly “mother ships” by most standards, but everything is relative. What were they up to that night?
Worried about the reef and the lagoon,
Mich
Day 26 Things that go Bump in the Night! (Written on Oct 23, 2013)
Laconic lagoons lure us!
Photo credit M. Jenner
Throughout the night we conducted another listening watch. Inday started between 9 and 12, Carrie and I took the 12 till 3 and Maria listened from 3 to 6 am. Interestingly, we are detecting some low frequency sounds. What exactly are we hearing? The ocean is an extremely noisy place. Thus far over the last year we have listened to all manner of interesting sounds. Most get funny names until we work out what they are, and in true navy tradition they receive a fish handle first. For decades the sound-lounge operators in subs called the owners of sperm whale codas “carpenter fish”, due to the resemblance of a hammer banging. Other wonderful sounds we have given equally wonderful handles include, “raspberry fish”, “drummer fish”, “saw fish”, “George Jetson fish”, “stethoscope fish”, “brrr fish”, “aliens”, “crazy monkeys” and “Kerboing” fish! Now we easily recognise the ever-present and vocal humpback whales, common dolphins, Risso’s dolphins orca, foraging blue whale calls, Brydes’ whales and dwarf minke whales and dwarf sperm whale, to name a few.
At 0636 we are awake and ready for the new day. I do my regular exercises and come down to the main salon at 0700. What will today hold in store for us? We continued monitoring for whales by looking and remaining on the move travelling back and forth along the canyon and as well re-mapping the seafloor with the sounder feeding into the bathymetry software.
Nicely, the wind holds off, this is the 15 knots I love! As the day progressed the sea glassed beautifully – the colours of the reef continuing to amaze me. The luminous green of the lagoon is thoroughly laconic. I can imagine the press of life in the lagoon – the grumpy groupers guarding their homeland bommies, the flitting clouds of neon damsels and the “busy about town turtles” doing their thing. It is wonderful to see how the myriad of these animals live their lives together.
Micah has been collecting our mail from Fremantle and sent a photo by email, of Tas’s wonderful results for her NAPLAN (National Assessment Program for Literacy And Numeracy) tests sat in May. Wow, all the books on the high seas have paid off! Who would have thought learning to count with cowrie shells at the beach, would be so effective!
Drifting in the current, on a glassy night before sampling for krill during the twilight period,
Mich
Day 27 Deepwater Blue Whale Bliss (Written on Oct 24, 2013)
Scotty le bleu cruising slowly beneath ‘Whale Song’.
Photo credit S. Kenion
Throughout the night we continued a listening watch from 9 until midnight with Inday on the earphones, Carrie and I from 12 until 3 and Maria from 3 to 6am. Some dolphins come by in the early morning with nice whistles, most likely foraging runs.
My first job after my morning exercises was to locate a spot that I noticed on yesterdays images on my D800… After a logical process, moving from the outside of the camera inside to the sensor, the spot is taken care of. Relief! Working ones’ way into the camera is a tad nerve-wracking and in the blazing sunshine (even at 7am while taking checking photos against a light background), the perspiration glows and flows while I toil at the camera. After I declared the sensor clean, Simon commented “The sensor survived!” Firmly I replied, “No, I survived!”
We raised our anchor at 7, as usual and taking a punt we made our way to the west. We are interested in the channel so east or west are the options. We travelled way out wide and deployed several sonobuoys in strategic spots… We are in the deepwater and just chouffing along… At 11 o’clock I came down from the fly-bridge and quickly laid out lunch on the galley counter and momentarily sat down to write an email to Tas about her week-end activities. In the middle of “Dear Tas” I heard Simon from the wheelhouse call “BLOW, one mile ahead!” Yes, the crew of the whole boat arrived in the wheelhouse then went to various decks with various cameras and gadgets to capture the proceedings! Another blow is seen, the whale was heading south. Everyone is VERY excited after many days and nights of looking and looking, to no avail… It had a tall blow with only very little body showing at the surface. “What do we have here?” we thought. With the next surfacing we could easily see that it was a blue whale! Slowly we followed from 0.6nm behind and immediately deployed our echo-sounder to determine krill density in the area. Soon we determined there were two whales. Maria called from the fly-bridge “One is little and it’s only a quarter of the size of the adult!” We were tracking a cow and calf! They were heading south slowly and steadily. Size-wise, the cow was 24 m long and the calf around 6 m in length. A calf of this year, we were with a new-born! Wonderful!
Splashes just beyond the pair were intriguing, simply since the calf only surfaced to breath, displaying no other movements. We deployed some more sonobuoys and with some fantastic software, Rodneys’ Super-Duper Blue Whale Finder, we were able to continue tracking them! The splashes turned out to be spinner dolphins and they roared towards the cow and calf blue whales as they trucked southwards with 4 minute down-times. We towed our Bio Sonics echo-sounder for krill density determination where these whales were swimming. A slight confusion occurred with splashes from the dolphins and the surge of the cow and calf surface. We made a sighting of the blues within the dolphins and then a few minutes later another of the pair further away. Perhaps the dolphins were a little too rambunctious for the mother with her new calf. She was very protective. By the end of the encounter we had named the mother Daimy and the calf Pressa, these are our second and third blue whales thus far!
A blue whale call inshore caught our attention with Rodneys’ SDBWF and with lunch food quickly thrown down the hatch in very fast rotation the whole boat was back at full attention again. I returned to my mast position and Inday on the RADAR tower. People were perched everywhere at high places on the vessel. “I’ve got a blow!” I yelled from my perch “zero one zero degrees, two-point-two miles, BLOW, Yahoo!” Another blow billowed and Curt adjusted our course accordingly with my instructions. Then Curt arrived on the Portuguese bridge announcing, “The calling whale has made a hard turn, the bearing is over here…” Curt turned Whale Song and a minute later a blow and a blue whale surfaced beneath. After a few blows we realised this is a singleton, it is another whale! WE HAVE FOUND THREE WHALES TODAY!
The billowing blow of curious Scotty, passing ‘Whale Song’ yet again!
Photo credit M. Jenner
Not one, not two but three pygmy blue whales today! The singleton began to get curious. Soon it came towards Whale Song and we had an 18 m whale swimming under the boat amidships and around the bow! The wide-angle lens had to be to be the go… I raced to change cameras… This whale swirled underneath us, what could it be so curious about? We were all amazed and pretty soon we have experienced being mugged by a blue whale with four passes under and around Whale Song! Calling the position of the whale from above on the foremast, I could see the whale as a darkish streak in the water as we continued photo-id in the early evening light. “Coming up, it’s paralleling us, range 30 m!” Very cool Scotty! A curious blue whale, named for our dear Scott Reef. You would have to call this a RED letter day!
We continued to tow the Bio Sonics throughout the whole day and even while heading back to our anchorage. While underway, Resty served delicious blt’s and bbq sausages with tomato and cheese and toasted buns galore. All was inhaled with relish, no mayo, no tomato sauce, no ketchup… An on-going argument occurs every night at the dinner table when the bottle of “dead horse” appears!
We set the hydrophone to record overnight and everyone dreamed of Scotty, our crazy blue whale swimming around and around us!
From deep within blue bliss,
Mich
Day 28 Canyon Antics with Thunder (Written on Oct 25, 2013)
Thunder clouds building while we worked with Thunder – our 5th blue whale offshore in the Kimberley!
Photo credit I. Ford
Curt’s feet hit the floor early this morning. I also woke as he rose and casting a glance at the world outside, I was delighted at the verdict! Perfect, as usual! A pale, pink sky with rose-tinged cumulus and “the usual”, calm seas, are the order for the day.
Having waited so long to find whales here, we are buoyed beyond words. It is early when Curt and I came down the stairs, but I didn’t realise it was so early… before 6. Anyway, this gave me a chance to catch up on yesterdays’ blog. The day was so eventful that I wasn’t actually able to write my daily blog last night.
As the crew made their way up the stairs for breakfast, even while slightly bleary-eyed, the excitement of yesterday still pulsed through their sleepy veins! What will today hold for the motley crew of Whale Song? We up anchored at 0850, a little later than other days, as we began some analysis of the data collected yesterday and checking photos.
We headed east for a short time, deployed a sonobuoy and then travelled westwards through the channel. Lunch was prepared, sausages, salami and lots of salad items and kindly, after the meal clean up was finished, we were ready for an afternoon whale to come by!
At 1322 Inday called from the top-deck, “There’s a blow, 355 degrees and 1nm away!” It was almost straight ahead, the SBWF had taken us to another whale! We were on the trail of a whale, following another tall blow! With this distinctive blow, we were certain it was another pygmy blue whale! The body was dark-toned and the dorsal fin very small and set well back. Curt thought perhaps the dorsal had been cut off, as it was so small. Upon checking the photos I could see the dorsal fin was intact, and just told him the whale is cute. “Cute…” I heard him mutter! We were hopeful for a fluke-up with the first sighting while travelling directly behind, but sadly, the fluke stayed underwater. While we approached the whale we all took our various places. Curt drove from the Portuguese bridge, Carrie wrote notes from the fly-bridge, Inday filmed from the RADAR tower, Sam lurked at the bow with his GoPro on the pole (Samcam) and I perched aloft on the foremast… The blows were tall and billowy, from lungs the size of Kombi vans. As the whale surfaced 3 or 4 blows are counted but the flukes remained down. This whale managed to take us away from a very impressive, tropical storm brewing behind us. As we monitored the minutes of the dive-time, 13, to be precise, we kept looking behind us where the cumulonimbus clouds were building substantially and the sky was darkening considerably. Blackness overtook the lower clouds and thunder cracks reached us and lightning streaked to the sea. Skipper grew more worried, hiding under Inday’s feet. What was happening where the three Indonesian fishing boats anchored? How would they survive this? The wind was 30-35 knots, but what of their fish drying in the rigging… “Ok, we will have one more surfacing with this whale and then we’ll break” Curt decided.
The clouds were getting darker and darker… you can see the rain was just only 0.2 nm from us, very soon we would all get wet and very wet. “This is it, time everyone, we are breaking from this pod… get yourselves and all gear secure” Curt’s voice boomed loud and strong, there would be no confusing his message. I scrambled down the mast. We collected all research gear to bring inside, cameras, binoculars, radios and secured all items inside and outside. A full scale, tropical down-pour hit us. The rain was torrential, battering on a 45 degree angle. We could hardly see ahead. The rain-water hit the sea-water so hard that there are rings around the rain droplets. This became a lovely boat washing. The bucketing only lasted 15 minutes, enough time for Sam and Simon to get thoroughly drenched as they try to seal some cables entering the ship. Very shortly, this deluge stopped and the sky was blue again. The temperature wonderful, the heat and moisture reduced with the rain falling. We are in the monsoon. This is true monsoon weather.
This 20m whale received the honour of being called Thunder, simply due to the weather system around it as we worked. Another whale had been photo-identified and with this whale, we have worked with four at Scott Reef (including Daimy, Pressa, Scotty, Thunder )and one near Rowley Shoals, Andy.
With the weather passing, we returned to “Full Effort” for observations while re-entering the channel, ever hopeful of another finding whale! I saw that the fishing vessels were still there but they had dropped their masts, to reduce damage in the wind.
Scott Reef is an amazing place to document the critical habitat of pygmy blue whales. This spot is incredibly important and unique for pygmy blue whales. This is where the whales can have a “drive by krilling”! It’s a krill cafe, on a long journey. As the last rays of the sun sunk below the horizon and we left the eastern side of the channel, I bid Scott Reef a fond farewell and promised to continue to assist with protection of such a beautiful and integral ecosystem.
Resty prepared Filipino-style pasta, with beef or fish. It is all simply delicious! And huge platefuls are consumed by the ever-hungry crew!
As we made our way towards Darwin, our second time this year, we returned to our night watch regime again. I do enjoy the night, while underway. What will I see tonight? This will be a good time to reflect on all the wonderful sights witnessed at Scott Reef this year.
From a glassy wave east of SR,
Mich
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