Now that the Whales are talking and singing Jude drops her hydrophone off Blue Parrot at every available opportunity. We are floating near Grant Reefs when she hears “Orp Orp Orp – PT’CHOOOO” in the headphones. So we fire up ol’ Lazarus (our WWII Atomic 4 engine) and beetle over there to investigate. A roiling mass of intertwined flippers and fins greets us accompanied by excited Humpback bugles and sealion barks. “Terry, it’s a sealion – Humpback Frolic!”
We approach cautiously as two Humpbacks and several sealions wrestle noisily. Flukes and flippers appear and submerge. “The sealions are doing flips over the backs of the whales!” Terry laughs “Don’t they look tiny when you see them together?”. Splash! Trumpet! Orp! “It must be a circus under the water!”
Meanwhile the tide and a breeze behind us are pushing us towards the action. “Damn!” whispers Jude “I don’t want to disturb them” Suddenly the cetacean/pinniped play pauses. The sealions crane their necks to look around. (They really do resemble bears). The 2 Whales relax and rest on the surface breathing quietly. Did we drift too close?
No – The Whales are coming over! Will they visit with us a while? They are SOOOOO BiiiiiiiiiiiiG! With a slow-motion flick of flukes one whale dives and disappears. Now the other whale lazily rolls over to reveal a curious eye watching us. Then Whale dives under Blue P’s stern. The Whales leave smooth round “footprints” beside Blue P as they sound and dive under her hull. They surface 200m away trending NE toward the mainland shore. The curious seabears hang around a while longer checking us out – perhaps for possible playmate material. Obviously we fail the test because they soon grow bored and swim away.
We discuss whether we might have interrupted their fun. “The Whales might have used the opportunity to get away from the seabears. Maybe they were bothering them again.” Terry says. “Wouldn’t I love to be able to mind meld and understand them telepathically” says Jude.
It takes years of dedicated observation to understand the body language and emotional reactions of species with whom we share our domestic lives like cats, dogs and farm animals. Though Whales are mammals like us they are very different in physiology and perceptions. We can only be part of the 1% of their lives that they spend at the surface of the water. What are they doing the other 99% of the time? “If only I could genetically engineer myself a pair of gills” Jude muses “I would love to live with them in their world for a while…….”
