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Overnight we conducted a krill survey close to ice edge where we had mapped the calling blue whales. As dawn broke around 4am our observer team was stationed outside above the bridge ready to spot whales. The whales were south of us and again within the ice but this time the ice was more open – at first. By 5am we had spotted our first tall blow as well as many humpback whales quietly resting among the floes and the odd busy minke. Our speed gradually slowed to 2 knots as we again meandered through the ice. But unfortunately, just as we unambiguously identified two Antarctic blue whales, the ice closed in and we could get not get any nearer. In fact we had to do a tight 180 degree turn to extricate the ship from the denser ice.
The frustration among the scientists was palpable as was the desire by the crew to get out into more open water. We retraced our route until we identified a lead into more open water but this was in the opposite direction to the calling whales – however, the observers had seen distant large blows in this direction too.
Once in the more open water we headed back north skirting around the denser ice. Still we were seeing many humpback whales and then we spotted a distant pod of killer whales. To ease the frustration of missing out on the blues we started to approach these whales to identify the ecotype and also collected photo-identification data. But just as we were closing on the killer whales a blue whale popped up with 200m of the ship! Immediately our priorities changed and we started a focal follow on this whale. Soon we had spotted another blue, then another two, then another two and then three more. For the rest of the day we moved from group to group characterising their movements and collecting images for individual identification.
By late afternoon, just before the tired but content whales team stood down, our sounders detected a huge krill swarm two miles long and 100m deep. The active acoustic team were of course keen to sample the swarm so they could estimate the total biomass. A very short but successful mid-water trawl collected enough krill to keep them measuring for most of the night.
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.