Dead Whale

Thursday:

This morning the weather is better but no whales have been spotted so far. We spent the morning waiting for a call from the search vessel, but no news yet.........

To keep us amused, a dead-whale safari was organised by car to a beach beyond the village of Bleik. It is only 15 minutes away beyond the jagged "Seven Sisters" so it is quite a scenic drive through mountains and moors, past dwarf forests and hill-tarns. We looked hard for reindeer but saw none.

We saw pretty lake-side cabins and learned that these were the private week-end retreats for the people of Andennes, ten minutes away. I didn't meet any of the local householders, but it looked to me like they had their life-style pretty well sorted out. The other interesting man-made feature was a number of wooden outdoor hot tubs, built into mounds with fire places beneath. I definitely want one at home.

You might not think it would be hard to find a dead whale, but we missed it on the first pass. It is largely covered with sand and so it has blended into the beach. However, finding a dead whale from downwind is just as easy as you would imagine.

The corpse was of a quite large male sperm whale that was stranded here last autumn. Sadly the lower jaw, which had the teeth, had been removed but otherwise it was quite intact.

This dead whale looked even more like a frankfurter than the living Miø did on my first encounter. It appeared to be swimming along the beach, half submerged in sand.

I went to push his nose with my boot but Iva abruptly pulled me away saying that if I did, my boots would not be allowed in the car. The smell is very hard to get rid of.

I lifted a large, bleached bone from the whale's upper jaw. It was very heavy, even for a bone. Whales need to be heavy to sink themselves, but imagine the effect of extreme pressure on any bone that had air trapped within it. Whalebones are not just dense, they are soaked in oil which may prevent air from being trapped in or between them.

We had to return our borrowed car to the Whale-safari team, so we could not stay long, but I loved the drive back to the lighthouse. We passed through the village of Bleik which has strips of hay meadows running back to the base of the steep cliffs that back the bay. I was sure there would be corncrakes in there because they looked just like those I had seen in the Hebrides; full of meadow-sweet and Geraniums.

My eyes were glued to the windows of the car as I searched for reindeer and elk in the distance. I only found sheep, but vowed to come back later in the week, which we did.