“I’ll pump it up some more. Did you find the methylhydrate?” Terry is rummaging around in the starboard lazerette looking for a bicycle pump to pressurize the kerosene tank. The tank feeds an old Force 10 heater in Blue P’s cabin. It could take the chill off a 0°C morning. A little warmth, however stinky, would be appreciated. But the old heater won’t stay lit. The upside is that we are generating considerable body heat in efforts to get it started. Pumping up the tank and a couple of cups of hot tea get us out in the cold and under way.

Another frigid Autumn morning of no wind. At least old Lazarus (our ceaselessly ressucitated WWII Atomic 4 engine) starts easily. We’re off. Terry is scanning the horizon for whales “A blow! Inside Grant Reefs, south end.” Wow! Whales in the morning! That’ll wake you up fast! “Why don’t you drop the hydrophone to listen and I’ll shut down the motor?”

“I think I hear them Yes! There’s some low burbles – and higher squeaking – Woah! that was LOUD! A long high note – a growl” Jude does a bad imitation of a whale growl and hands Terry the headphones. He pulls them over his ears. The thrilling, haunting sound of whalesong floats through the hydrophone line from deep underwater.

“YES!” A huge grin spreads along his face.  Jude is leaning over the toe rail holding the hydrophone cable off Blue Parrot’s hull “I’m trying to keep the cable from knocking against the hull. It’s vibrating and making that low throbbing bass rumble” Blue P is still moving. Sailboats have a great deal of momentum once they’re in motion. A 5 knot NW breeze is pushing us SE. Movement of water over the cable causes the cable to vibrate. Finally the breeze calms and Blue Parrot slows enough for a clearer sound.

“Of course now I can hear the Comox ferry” Jude sighs “I hear 2 whales – there’s a singer close to us and 1  farther away – at least one. I don’t know where” We watch for the whales to surface to breathe but no blows are visible anywhere “Where are they? We saw that blow at 2:15 and now it’s 3:30. Can they stay down that long when they’re singing?”

The whales sing. We can hear repeated phrases and the range of vocalizations soar from deep grunts to mid-range groans to whoops, screeches and whistles. There are also percussive knocks or clicks. And those are only the sounds in the range that humans are capable of hearing! There could be subsonic and supersonic vocalizations that we humans would never pick up. Researchers can use spectral analysis software to get a visual representation of these sounds.

“Let’s send the recordings to Jim Darling. I can ask him if the whales are singing the same song in Hawaii” Jude enthuses “I want to know if some of our whales are wintering there.” Jim is a bioacoustician who co-founded Whale Trust. He’s based in Hawaii and Tofino, migrating between the 2 locations much like a migrating whale.  “It would be great to know which individual whales winter in Hawaii and feed here in the summer.” “And we should go to Hawaii to meet them there.” Terry adds. It is our dream to freedive in warm, clear water when the whales are singing, feeling all our bones resonating with their music.

After about 1 1/2 hours the singing becomes sparser and the sun is setting. “We’d better head over to Blubber Bay tonight. We can drop the hydrophone there and hear if they’re singing closer to Rebecca Rocks or even Texada.” So we head off under motor and jib. As we round Harwood Pt. we see several humpbacks splashing around Revecca Rocks. Are these our singers?

Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow.

A little information from  https://dosits.org/animals/sound-production/how-do-marine-mammals-produce-sounds/

HOW DO WHALES SING? Unlike humans, whales don’t have to exhale to produce sound.  Whales don’t have vocal cords either. Like humans,  humpback whales have a larynx. Instead of vocal cords they have a thick, u-shaped, ridge of tissue. This ‘u-fold’ serves the same purpose as our vocal cords. Adjacent to their larynx is a large inflatable pouch called the laryngeal sac. When Humpback whales contract muscles in their throat and chest, air flows between the lungs and the laryngeal sac. Alternating expansion and contraction of the lungs and sac drives air across the u-fold, causing it to vibrate and produce sound. The  vibrations vibrate through the whale’s body into the surrounding water. Changes in the laryngeal sac shape may alter the frequency and/or loudness of sounds produced.