Written on May 03, 2014
The tailbeat of a diving Pygmy Blue whale leaves a beautiful footprint.
Photo credit M. Jenner
With another early start we dropped the lines at 0619 and made our way seaward. The dawn spectacularly lit the sky with intense hues of blue, purple and orange. As raisin toast popped in the toaster and the Nespresso machine worked overtime to wake folks, Russ was perched over his computer checking on the status of the two pygmy blue whales we tagged in the last few days. ‘Blue Lander’ was continuing to head north on a mission and ‘Ivory’ was doodling near the canyon. With the promise of good weather we motored past the northern side of Rottnest Island and made our way towards the latest known position of ‘Ivory’. “I have just seen a humpback whale breach!” Curt called down from the wheelhouse. We cruised to the area 2.5 nm away but didn’t see any sign of this early northern migrating whale. It was lovely to know that the migration had just begun. A recent Argos location indicated that Ivory’ was to the north of the Perth Canyon, on the continental shelf where the 200, 300, 400 and 500m contour lines form a gentle slope. Approaching this location but still 3.8 nm inshore, the first pod of the day was a pygmy blue whale but the rationale was to press on to find ‘Ivory’.
Through the wave the head surges!
Photo credit M. Jenner
Between chocolate pastries and more coffees, we searched and searched for ‘Ivory’ but then decided that we should find any whale to deploy another LIMPET Tag. Lunch was served, leftovers of green chicken curry with fried rice and salad and rock melon. All was good – we were all fuelled for the afternoons’ activities. With the wind laying down, the swell decreasing and a pygmy blue whale sighting near Whale Song, we launched Orca at 1242 to deploy another LIMPET tag and even to check on ‘Ivory’ and the status of the tag implantation.
As soon as we left Whale Song we had a possible close pass for deployment but the stars didn’t quite align and despite a couple more chances, the tag remained in the holder for the remainder of the day…
Over the course of the afternoon in Orca, we bounced our way more southward and back towards where ‘Ivory” was still toodling back and forth north of the Canyon. As the sun sunk and the sky turned to pink and blue we had to call it a day. “We gave it a college try anyway” Russ conceded, although disappointed.
After five days of field work we have several thousand images of blue whales, pages and pages of surfacing information, almost 100 short GoPro videos and at least 10 more individual pygmy blue whales to add to our photo-id catalogue. What a wonderful blue world they live in! I’ll be wearing turquoise again to remember the beautiful blue streak in the water that is a pygmy blue whale.
From beside the blue!
Mich
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