12 hour whale hunt.

The Guides

Tuesday was a rough day, but it was possible to go out and search for whales. We covered the ferry and one of the whale-safari boats in the morning and then, as soon as we were ashore for lunch we were off again for an afternoon safari aboard the "Reine" that turned into a marathon.

We found a wale on the hydrophones which was probably the one known as Moby Dick. He was way off to the north and we lost him, so we then turned south for another whale which we did not make visual contact with until around 10 pm. By this time we were 34 Km off shore.

Every time the boat stopped, seabirds would gather around us thinking that we were a fishing boat about to haul in our nets. This was a good opportunity to photograph fulmars especially.

Miø

The new whale (my first ever sperm whale) blew ahead of us and we approached it quietly and slowly from behind, giving everyone a good opportunity to watch and take pictures. It stayed on the surface for over ten minutes before gliding forward, exhaling and then sounding into the deep canyon below.

Standard procedure is to stay on-station for roughly 40 minutes until the whale surfaces again. In deep water like this (over 2Km deep) the dive is vertical down and then up again, so we expected the whale to be nearby. During it's descent a sperm whale emits loud sonar clicks, but on the way up they go silent for the last five minutes, so we know roughly when to expect them. Our whale stayed down for 1 hour and 10 minutes, so we had a long, long wait, bobbing around on the rough sea and being sick.

Midnight sun.

Sure enough, the whale appeared again and we knew that we had about 15 minutes to watch it's regular breathing and take the photos needed to identify it.

I could not resist calling this whale Wienerpølse which is the Norwegian for frankfurter. (Hot-dogs seem to be the Norwegian national dish these days, especially in airports and on ferrys.) The whale just looked like a big sausage lying on the surface of the sea. Not only that; it was a sort of browny pink with cream blotches. I spent ages fiddling with my photos to make them grey before I learned that sperm whales come in lots of shades from brown through pale blue/grey to almost black. They also come in plain white, as you know.

From the photos kept back on the computers in Andenes, it was easy to identify this whale as Miø.

Skipper

Throughout the long Arctic day the crew were always cheerful, encouraging and supportive while they tended the sick and fed the rest of us hot soup and crackers. In the great swell of the north Atlantic, at least half of the passengers were sick but most of them recovered on our way back to port under the midnight sun. We did not tie-up until 1 am.

As well as the strain of watching all day, first on the ferry and then the "Reine", we nursed aching hips, legs and backs from the constant adjustment to the motion of the ships while our shoulders and arms ached from holding on to ships' rails.  Whale-counting is physically punishing, but you have to work long days when the opportunity arises. You have all winter for data-entry.