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Once again last night we had "after dinner whales" which eluded us and headed off into the fog and scattered pack ice. Once again we were on them this morning, but frustratingly, they ran and hid in the pack ice as well! While acoustics can maintain reasonably good tracking on the blue whales in ice-strewn areas, it is not practical to operate the ship or the "Remora" in anything more than open or scattered pack ice (i.e. less than 10-20% coverage.)
The plan from here is to continue west and get as close as possible to the longitude of New Zealand (this gives us the shortest distance to sail back) in order to gain the maximum time on task south of 60S. How far across we get will depend upon the weather (due to turn bad tomorrow) and the whales (and who knows about that!).
Until Tomorrow,
Regards Chris, Margaret, and the VWhales Team
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.