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After a fantastically busy day with many blues whales yesterday we didn’t dare hope that our luck could continue but happily it has. The acoustic team was kept busy all night logging over 400 whale calls. By first light they were confident a whale was close and sure enough the first of the sightings team to make up top was greeted with a tall blue whale blow on the horizon. Things then went a little quiet. We had some whales calling back towards the area we were at yesterday but in search of challenge we decided to track our faintest calls. This took some time but was worth the effort when we eventually found a pod of at least six blue whales feeding at the surface. We stayed with the whales to enjoy the spectacle and to get photographs for individual identification. We also completed a sound velocity profiler drop. I’m told this gadget can tell us how well sound is propagated at different depths and this is influenced by salinity and temperature. We have just dropped another sonobuoy and are receiving strong calls from the whales feeding nearby.
I’m happy to say all on board have now found there sea legs so we can all now enjoy the privilege of seeing so many of this spectacular animals.
REGARDS: Mike
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.