Category: Salish Sea

November 2019 #4 The Pinnacles of Whalesong

Nov 6th dawns another frigid morning. While our tea kettle attempts a few tunes of its own Terry downloads video from the camera. Jude is programming her mixer/recorder while listening for whales on the hydrophone. “Terry – I hear something –  it definitely sounds like singing – not close. Let’s head out. I’ll keep the hydrophone down and keep listening. We may be able to locate them”

We head the Parrot ship SW in the direction of Vancouver Island – to The Pinnacles. That’s where, yesterday, the golden light of the setting sun backlit heart-shaped blows of 6 – 10 humpback whales. Their dark backs appeared as tiny black crescents breaking the surface 2km SW of Blue Parrot.

The Pinnacles is a rock formation which rises sharply from the ocean floor at 600ft up to 70 ft below the water’s surface. Fish like to congregate here and so do all the critters who eat them including humans.  As we motor closer Jude is listening for increasing volume of whalesong. “Sounds like we’re going in the right direction. Do you see anybody” “Nobody yet” Terry answers “Let me know when you want to stop”

During mid-day there is a break in service on the Comox-Powell River and Texada-Powell River ferries as their crews change shifts. Happily it’s break time now. The silence is heavenly. These are the clearest songs Jude has been able to record. Subtle nuances and inflections which had been obscured by boat noise on the previous recordings are now clearly audible. “You’ve got to hear this Terry! I think there are 2 whales – 1 farther away” An enraptured Jude holds out the headphones “I’m going to get the speaker so we can both listen.”  Jude plugs in the speaker and whalesong pours into the air.

We listen: The sounds are so awesome – so expressive. It’s not possible to listen without being moved – enthralled by the ranges and timbres of their voices.

They grunt, groan, whoop and whistle. There is even a knocking percussive sound. How are they making that sound?

What are they singing about? What emotions are they expressing?  Do groups of males get together to sing in unison? Are these whales singing together?  The 2 whales don’t seem to be singing the same part of the song. Are they friends? Do whales sing over each other like birds do when they are proclaiming their territory? – So many questions but mostly exhilaration and awe.

Aerial whalesong might be what attracts a curious young seal to Blue Parrot. Seal circles our ship, peering into the cockpit at us. S/he dives underwater and we hear whiskers snuffling against the hydrophone “Hey! Get off of there!” Jude yells into the water. Up comes seal but s/he doesn’t leave. S/he stays with us checking out our dinghy – looking and looking. “Maybe s/he’s a seal scientist or engineer and s/he’s calculating the logistics of how we could be hiding a humpback whale in the cockpit of our little boat!” Terry laughs. Jude holds the speaker out where seal can see it and turns it off and on to demonstrate to seal where the whalesong is coming from. Seal disappears underwater and then surfaces again.  The whalesong must be very loud underwater. And the same song is coming from our boat – probably delayed by a few seconds. It must be a profound puzzle for a curious seal.

 

Could this curious seal be the one under our boat listening to the whalesong?

Humpback Whales singing at the Pinnacles in the Salish Sea

Eventually seal departs. But the blessed reprieve from boat noise is soon blasted apart by the engines of several tugs towing heavily loaded barges northward up the Strait. The bass throbbing of those engines chugs on and on for hours.

After 2 1/2 hours the whales seem to have stopped singing. We scan the sea looking for blows or surfacing whales. “A BREACH” Terry yells as one whale launches himself out of the water 500m away. Another whale is with him but we aren’t close enough for ID. “Of course I don’t have my camera!” Terry mutters. And of course the whales swim off to the west – away from us. On these shorter days we have to head back to the anchorage before the light fades. So we do.

Tomorrow is another day.

 

November 2019 #3 Entangled!

NOTE TO READERS: All “Quotes” in this blog are approximations of conversations and are NOT the actual words that were said by any of the people quoted.

“Let’s check out the other side of Harwood” Terry suggests. The 2 frolicking humpback whales and their sealion friends have left and it’s a sunny afternoon. We’re drifting around Harwood when the VHF radio crackles with an incoming alert. “Susan, where’s your boat?” It’s a call from Nick Templeman of Campbell River Whale Safaris to Susan MacKay, local whale naturalist and sightings recorder, founder of WOWS.  “I’m with 3 whales**. I think the calf got entangled in a prawn trap line. It’s been thrashing around trying to free itself. It might be panicking.” “Is it trailing line or a buoy?” Susan radios back. “I’m out in my skiff and heading over there. Can you stay with the whales?” “Roger that” Nick replies.

We have just passed the prawn traps they are talking about. We scout for escaped buoys and detached floating polypro line but don’t immediately find anything. So we head in the direction of Nick’s fast zodiac while calling him on our VHF radio. “Blue Parrot to Nick. How is the whale now?” “Looks like the 2 adults have broken off the buoy. The young one’s managed to shake off the line. I don’t see anything else on the calf. All 3 whales are looking more relaxed. I’m going to stay with them for a while longer to make sure they’re alright.” he answers. “I’ll see if I can find the broken line and buoy” Susan calls “They’re supposed to be using sinking line on prawn and crab traps so these entanglements don’t happen.”

This time the whale gets free. Susan ensures that no lines remain on the calf and finds the broken off  buoy. Later she tells us that too many people are abandoning line, traps and buoys. Susan has photographed derelict buoys all over the Salish Sea. They are a death trap to whales and other marine mammals.

Many people believe that all whales use echolocation to precisely image their surroundings. But only toothed whales have the physiology necessary to echolocate. Baleen whales like humpbacks, right whales, blue whales and grey whales do not have that ability. They may use a form of sonar to find large schools of fish and krill but fine distinctions of materials and spatial location are not available to them. Even young orca who have extremely sensitive echolocating abilities get entangled in lines and nets because they are curious, playful, and unaware of the dangers human contraptions pose to them.

It’s not difficult to change this situation and protect our marine friends from entanglement and drowning if people follow guidelines for using sinking line on prawn and crab traps. Please do it.

** The 3 whales are later identified by Nick as BCX0545 Europa / Bounty, her calf BCX Pony, and BCY Dalmatian

 

November 2019 #2 Fall Frolic

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…….”

 

September 2019 #1 Sea Otter!

September 2nd, Labour Day, 9am. We are anchored in Drew Harbour on Quadra Island inside Blue Parrot’s small cabin having breakfast.

“PTCHOOOO” “Was that a blow?” In a heartbeat we’re out on deck. “PTCHOOOOOO” “It WAS a blow!” Terry makes a mad dash for the camera as Jude unties the bubble boat and jumps in. 3 Humpback whales glide in the deep water around the entrance to the harbour. Jude is rowing like a madwoman to get to the entrance but several motorboats and a few kayaks close in on the whales. Will the whales swim into the harbour?  Here comes the ferry! Oh no! Maybe too much comotion for the whales. They turn tail and head for open water. We row over to the long sandy spit separating Drew Harbour from Sutil Channel and scramble over to the Channel side.

The 3 humpbacks are traveling about 250m off the spit so Terry records some video of them before we head back to Blue P to weigh anchor. Messages ring in on our cell phone. “8 humpbacks off Rebecca Rocks”, “Humpbacks in Baker Passage” “Mom and calf in Calm Channel” ” 5 whales between Viner Pt and Marina Is.” It’s maddening. We don’t see any blows anywhere – Which way did they go?

Rocked by boat and ferry wake we steer Blue Parrot through a tideline of logs and other assorted flotsam and jetsam. Terry spots a floating log that astonishingly resembles a sea otter. “It IS a SEA OTTER! Here in Sutil Channel” Terry is ecstatic “Ouzer Ouzer” he croons as the koala-like face peers over at us. He – we see his furry balls as he grooms himself – rolls over and over preening, cleaning and aerating his luxurious fur. Mostly, he’s lying on his back, nonchalantly riding the crests and troughs of boat wake up and down. He doesn’t even bother to move when the ferry barrels past.

Eventually we say “Goodbye” to our adorable otter to look for more whales. But it’s not our lucky day for being around whales.  We just miss 2 more who are reported to be fishing in the very spot we left an hour ago. Oh well. Nice to know whales are around.

Hope that sea otter finds a mate!

July 2019 #2 Whales in Whale Passage

When you make a dream come true and it’s everything you wished for it’s time for celebration and giving thanks to everyone and everything that made it possible. To be in this beautiful place on this little sailboat with its “cute” little old engine with whales visible in every direction – Jude and Terry are in humpback heaven! Sutil Channel is the primo place to be for Humpback Whales.

We have been anchoring or mooring Blue Parrot on Read Island where we’ve enjoyed meeting the locals – characters all. Living off-grid with only water access and no stores makes building your own home and bringing in supplies a challenge. Driving the kids across the Island to school on logging roads in Winter snow is reserved for the truly committed year round residents.

We haul our inflatable dinghy up on the government dock to repair a leak in the port pontoon. Two coats of Marine goop should do it. A 60-something character named John who’s been everywhere on the west coast from Alaska to Antarctica regales us with tales of tattered sails torn in the fresh winds of Johnstone Strait and mammal eating Transient orcas diving under porpoise pods and emerging with tender babies to gulp down for lunch. They aren’t called “killer whales” for no reason!

The winds really rip across Read Island into Evans Bay. These are the outflow winds sucked out of the deep waters and towering peaks in Bute Channel. We are fooled by the brisk breeze in the Bay but it weakens to a paltry puff out in Sutil Channel.  We turn north into Whale Passage where a few boats are fishing – always a good sign when looking for whales. “There they are!” Terry points to 3 humpbacks feeding along the shore of a Penn island. They are shallow diving. “Look! The middle one is fin slapping. Maybe herm is trying to shock the fish”  We are motoring through the passage in their general direction  “Oh, a breach!” The lead whale has breached, maybe to check out the scene visually. Maybe to let us know the 3 whales are there. Herm breaches again as the 3 swim around the point of the island. Is herm showing us their trajectory since we are behind them – we are 300m back. They round the point traveling faster away from us.

Time for a swim. It’s HOT in the relentless summer sun. Blue Parrot is open to the weather. We don’t have a bimini for shade or a dodger for rain or any other kind of protection. Jude jumps off the bubble boat for a refreshing dip – with clothes still on – a strategy that ensures constant cooling as the clothes dry on her skin. She is enjoying the very cold water as recreational boats pass with people sitting in the shade of biminis. Commercial whale watching zodiacs zip along at 25 knots filled with folks in survival suits. Jude splashes around for a good 10 minutes wondering whether the whales will get interested in a human splashing around in the water. But they don’t. sigh……

July 2019 #1 Orca Voices

“DRRING”, “DRRING” text messages are piling in on the cell phone as we motor out of Malaspina Inlet and approach Sarah Point. “Terry! Orcas off Sarah Point heading North – 2 minutes ago!”

“Woah!” Terry shouts “Do you see anybody?” We both reach for our binoculars and scan the water around the Point for dorsal fins. Eagle-eye Terry spots them “There they are! Near those 2 kayaks – 3, 4, no – 6. There’s 2 large males, I think they’re headed this way!” Jude pulls the throttle into neutral and drops the revs, ducks into the cabin for her recorder, hydrophone and headphones. Terry struggles with his new GH5 camcorder, selecting video controls on the fly.

“Here they come!” Jude is at the helm positioning the boat for best video angle “They’re right beside the boat! Oh Shit!……” A big male, right at the bow – surfacing and moving fast. Two adult females and a juvenile shoot past on our starboard side. Jude kills the engine and drops the hydrophone over Blue Parrot’s stern …… Nothing…. Fiddles with the knobs, “Why aren’t I hearing anything?” “Did you push in the headphone wires?” Terry calls. “Right!”  Jude connects the headphone wires and the roar of boat motors floods her ears. No orca sounds though. “They must be in stealth mode. They’re probably hunting”

 

Are they the same pod that barreled into Trevenen Bay a week ago? Jude was meditating on a boulder  when the unmistakable PCHOOO of those powerful blows reverberated around the inlet. A minute later they were approaching. Scimitar fins of 2 adult females and 2 juveniles slicing the silk smooth surface. What were they after? Forming a tight circle 75m from her rock they began repeatedly diving one after the other. Obviously onto somebody – a seal? What else could they be hunting in that shallow 10m deep water? No blood on the surface – no chunks of torn flesh in their teeth.  It’s a mystery with darkening dusk obscuring any visual clues of their hunt. And then they’re gone.

 

Back to the present “Wow! That was exciting! Whales on our first hour out on the ship. Must be a good omen.” We float around for a while hoping they’ll return. We watch for fins to see whether they head  into Malaspina Inlet. But now mounting waves and grey clouds billowing out from East Vancouver Island indicate that rain is definitely blowing our way. Better head into Cortes Bay to ride out the storm.

 

Dawn delivers a bright clear summer day  with no wind. We motor towards Mitlenach Island, ears tuned to the radio “4 humpbacks on the spoil grounds – south of Wilby Shoals – mid channel” It’s one of the commercial whale watching boats. Jude points the bow to NW when another report erupts from the radio “Orcas traveling – heading towards Baker Passage”  That’s SE – the opposite heading. Are these our orcas from yesterday?

 

A quick decision – a 180 degree turn and there they are. Two big bulls with towering dorsal fins. They could be the same orca we saw yesterday. They are transients – the mammal eaters who dine on seals, sea lions and dolphins. Observers of orca hunts recount with awe the fearsome symmetry of their coordinated attack; cornering a 1 ton Stellar sea lion, terrorizing him into paralysis before the kill, tossing a harbour seal into the air, playing with her like a basketball. They haven’t been named “killer whales” for no reason.

 

Jude angles the boat for Terry’s best video shot. But converging waves from several boats’ wake are ricocheting wildly off the shores of 3 islands. Blue P becomes a crazed cradle-gone-rogue.  Even the new camera’s internal stabilization program can’t handle it.

 

Time to listen to what’s happening UNDER the water. Jude lowers the hydrophone. Plaintive meowing calls greet her ears – the signature calls of G clan, Northern Resident Killer Whales! This is SO EXCITING! It’s a whole conference of calls. She listens keenly trying to differentiate individual calls but motor noise from speeding boats devours the sound space with intense high-pitched whines.

The overpowering noise becomse painful.  Jude tears off the headphones and shakes out her ears. How does all that noise from screaming outboard engines affect the orcas who have such sensitive hearing? They hear a range of audio frequencies that humans can’t even imagine. Do whales and dolphins become deaf from our noise polution? One of the large males hangs back from the rest of the group. It sounds like he is calling to them and they are answering – contact calls in a world of murky water and intrusive motor noise.

So many boats are chasing the orcas that we decide to minimize the disturbance. We swing around  to the NW just as a dark whale back surfaces only a couple of knots away. That’s half an hour at our super cruising speed of 4.85 knots. Blue P is not a boat that can chase whales but we actively drift in their general direction.

Of course Blue P’s WWII Atomic 4 engine “Lazarus” chooses that moment to quit with no warning. A plastic bag in his water intake? He’s not overheating but he won’t start again – “Oh Oh, could be a speck of dirt in the carburetor valve”. Jude grabs a trusty tool – the butt end of a large screw driver. Bang, bang on the carburetor. “Lazarus” resurects himself and turns over as if nothing has occurred. With a rueful sigh and an exchange of meaningful glances we continue.  If we stop to address everything on Blue P that needs attention we’ll never have time to hang out with the whales.

Onward to Read Island…..

October 2018 – Fog

Here we are floating around in Sutil Channel. We finally got here after after months of dreaming about this place as reports streamed in of dozens of humpback whales gathering to frolic and feed. Well – we’re here after a day of motoring – but where are the whales? We did notice one humpback blow off Francisco Point when we came around Marina Island. Then Terry sighted 2 blows at the SW tip of Read Island but nobody has come close or even lingered to feed in any of their reported favourite sites. So much for Humpback Heaven!

We circle the Subtle Islands. A flotilla of stellar sea lions is hauled out on the NW side. A couple of baby seals check us out. No whales. We have permission to tie up to another private buoy in one of the bays, courtesy of one of Martha’s friends. The folks on Cortes Island love the whales and have been very generous in helping us out with places for our ship to moor.

Tonight Terry and I lie awake meditating and mentally sending invitations to the whales to come and meet us if they aren’t too busy. The fog rolls in during the morning. We are floating around Hill Island. I am working below as Terry watches a fog bank roll up the channel. “Try phoning Martha” Terry calls down to me. “Ask her whether they’ve got fog over that side of the Island.”  I phone Martha. “She says it was clear this morning but the fog came in thick. It’s supposed to clear near noon but local knowledge says maybe late afternoon or evening”  Oh Joy! The fog is steadily moving toward us so we head back to our mooring buoy to wait it out.

And that’s the saga of Sutil Channel; floating around in the sun – monitoring the fog banks – waiting  for whales – and spotting them – in the distance. Meanwhile, we have some  fun observing raucous arguments between eagle mates. We watch a loon try to swallow a big-headed sculpin. We ponder on why the shore pines in the Bay are dying like the red cedars are dying in Trevenen Bay. But no whales. After a few days we decide to head back to the other side of Cortes. 2 humpbacks appear about 1 knot ahead of Blue Parrot to lead the way.

 

September 2018 – Puffer Pigs

Well, it wasn’t a good month for hanging out with humpbacks but we did encounter more delightful harbour porpoises, affectionately named “puffer pigs” than we’ve ever seen before. We were anchored in one of our favourite calm weather spots close to ‘Red Pepper’. The sloop is adorned with a 200Watt solar panel to power her electric motor. Ken and Pat, her crew,  are retired and not in a hurry to get anywhere in particular.  When they aren’t sailing their 35ft red-hulled Erickson sailboat they can motor all day at 3 knots and fully recharge their batteries at the same time. We make a wish that electric motors will soon become affordable for your average low income sailor.

In the morning Terry saw a couple of blows further south so we headed that way. The sky was blue, the mountain vistas spectacular – but no whales appeared – so we floated on a silk smooth sunlit sea for hours. As sunset coloured the sky we followed leaping herring into Blubber Bay on Texada Island, hopeful that some humpbacks would discover the herring too. After anchoring we settled in for a peaceful night.

The moon is bright and the sea still calm when we get up to check the anchor line at 2am. “It’s a perfect night to drop the hydrophone” Jude enthuses. Before I can move: Pchooo! “Was that a blow?” Pchooo! “Terry, there’s a whale out there.”  “Only one?” “Yes, s/he must have found those herring.” The whale is not really close so I drop the hydrophone to listen underwater. What a cacophony! We’re close to shore and the hydrophone hangs close to bottom where  shrimp crackle, barnacles creak, fish grunt, seals burp and pilings rub and groan. It surely is noisy in the intertidal zone. I can’t identify half of these intriguing sounds. They are so loud that I can’t hear any whale noises if there are any. We listen to the whale breathing above the water just outside the bay. But soon a diesel engine barrels into the bay drowning out all other sound above and under the water. Oh well. We plan to get up early to check whether our whale is still hanging around.

And there s/he is the next morning – intently shallow feeding just outside the bay. We float around watching herm for a while. As we float a motorboat zooms towards us headed right for the area where whale is feeding. I call on the VHF radio to let them know there is a whale in the area and they slow down.

One of our friendly Powell River whale spotters with a scope on her deck calls us to let us know that there are orcas in Blubber Bay. We have been so engaged with our humpback friend that we didn’t notice them but now we see 6 orcas racing out of the bay. They are beauties – one male with a very long dorsal fin. I struggle to get the hydrophone back in the water but don’t hear any communications. Maybe they are in stealth mode – mammal eaters hunting seals or sea lions. We watch them disappear into the distance and notice the incoming clouds. “Let’s stay ahead of the rain” I suggest “Do you see the Grant’s Reef buoy?” “Depth is 40 ft, 35, 23, 18” Terry reads the sounder as we approach the shallow reefs. They must be full of fish because a carpet of loons, murres, grebes and gulls float over them. 3 humpback whales troll the deeper water nearby. And here are a dozen harbour porpoises popping up for a puff of breath and submerging to feed together. What a sight! We’ve never seen more than 2 or 3 together so this is a treat.

Rain clouds are catching up to us as another sailboat motors across our bow towards the shallow passage between Savary and Hernando Islands. I call him on the radio and ask if we can follow him through. “Sure” he says. So we do – cruising through the shoals and rocks as our 10ft shallow alarm sounds more than once.

Good thing we’re making passage on a 9ft tide.

2018 Sea of Whales

2018 SEA of WHALES – INTRO

This year was finally the year we’d been working towards. After years of setbacks, injuries etc. we finally got to meet and hang out with Grey whales in Baja, Mexico and Humpback whales in the Salish Sea. They were very different experiences but the following are a couple of stories with observations about human interactions with our large aquatic relations.

Eye to I

Terry (the Amphibiographer) and I were off of Powell River in our 27ft sailboat. There was no wind so we were motoring back towards the harbour at about 4 knots. Suddenly we saw what looked to be the butt end of a large deadhead floating in the water about 100m ahead. Hitting one of these can spell disaster for a boat and I was on the tiller.

“Do you think it moved?” I asked Terry who was at the

bow peering through binoculars to get a better look.

“It’s an elephant seal!” he exclaimed, “See the nose?”

“An elephant seal?” As the head turned I saw that unmistakable trunk-like shnozz come into view. I slowed down instantly and angled sharply to port (left). But our friend didn’t seem to be too fussed. After surveying the view he slowly submerged and disappeared.

We were past him by this time so we looked back just in time to see a humpback whale breach about 300m behind us. I executed a 180 degree turn hoping we would get to witness some playful exuberant humpback acrobatics. Whale breached a few more times but stopped when we were within 150 metres. I slipped the motor into neutral so Whale would know exactly where our boat was and Terry swung below to retrieve the video camera. Then we waited. And waited.

About 10 minutes later “PCHOOOOO!” A blow about 50m from our boat! An arc of dark whaleback surfaced and began to circle around us. I killed the motor since obviously Whale knew we were there. Was Whale curious? I decided to try to communicate with Whale. The closest I can get to mimicking whale language is to play my didjeridoo. My partner can synthesize a mean didjeridoo with his resonant baritone voice. So the two of us began a duet, a whale serenade.

Whale didn’t talk back to us – or maybe Whale did but we couldn’t hear it above the water. But Whale did move closer to the boat – still circling slowly. We drifted together like this for a while – no pyrotechnics, just meditative mellow breathing, didjeridooing and hanging out together. It was magical!

Then Whale took a breath and submerged into a sleek shallow dive from 25m behind our boat, under the length of it to emerge about 7m off the bow! Since Whale was one and a half times the length of our boat this took a few seconds. We were so surprised we jumped, clattered and banged our recording gear as we rushed to video our friend, who then leisurely swam off leaving us breathless.

I have since learned that whales avoid banging and thumping coming from the hull of a boat so that might have chased our friend away. I have also learned, from time spent among the grey whales in Baja, Mexico, that if whales want to interact with you, they will come to you. There is never any need to chase them. A boat that is floating in the water with enthusiastic people onboard can be a source of entertainment for our large friends. It can be a toy to play with, an ecstatic audience for athletic performances, willing volunteers for their teasing tricks like surprise blow hole showers, and even useful for a good back scratch.

The whales who came to visit us in our little boats had complete control of the interactions. From as young as 6 weeks their physical skill and coordination in the water was amazing. They teased us, made us squeal with delight and only stayed with us as long as they wanted. See ‘Baja Grey Whales’ Blog

When a whale rolls on her/his side to make eye contact with you – conscious being to conscious being – you know you have met a relation.

2018-August – Humpback Whales Visit Us

My Mom was fascinated by the stories Terry and I told her about whales. She loved to hear about their curiousity and intellegence; how the grey whales enjoyed teasing the tourists in Baja and how the humpbacks here seemed be attracted to the sounds of the didjeridoo. Mom, Chayashi, died in May of this year from dementia. But even in advanced stages of dementia there were lucid moments during which hearing about whales would put a smile on her face. With all of the Mom care this year and the ongoing tasks that need to be done after a loved one dies we didn’t get out on the water until August.

We made the most of our abbreviated time out in SV Blue Parrot. Our complicated methodology was to sail or motor to the general area where we’d seen humpbacks feeding or traveling and hang around waiting for whales. Whenever we shut off the engine I would drop my hydrophone (underwater microphone) over the side of Blue Parrot to listen to the sounds underwater through headphones. Sound travels 5 times faster in water than in air so I could hear the bugle-like inbreath of distant humpbacks through my hydrophone before the sound traveled to me above the water. Very cool.

This video shows what happened when 2 curious Humpbacks whales decided to visit us twice in the same afternoon. We were drifting with our engine off at least 200 metres away from them while they were feeding. It was their clear choice to visit us.


The Amphibiographer’s Secrets to Enjoying Awesome Whale Encounters: It’s vital to respect these wondrous beings, not to chase, annoy, or disturb them while they are feeding or sleeping at the surface. Slow down in known whale feeding areas and be aware so you don’t run over one. If you see a blow slow down, there may be more around. If they approach you, stop moving, shut off your engine and enjoy the encounter until they leave you.

Whales have an enormous hearing capacity which is very useful over their huge migration range to stay in contact with each other. In their northern or southern feeding grounds they travel through water that is full of plankton and very murky. They depend on sound to communicate and to find their way underwater.

Humans hear sound frequencies from 20Herz to 20,000Herz. But long distance whale communications can be lower than 10Herz and travel thousands of kilometers. When orca, dolphins or porpoises are echolocating they produce a barrage of very loud staccato blips or clicks at frequencies higher than 100,000herz . Some research suggests that baleen whales like humpbacks may echolocate using low frequency sonar but they do not have the very high frequency capability of porpoises or dolphins or even the toothed whales. There doesn’t seem to be definitive research that nails down the range of frequencies humpback whales can hear. Happily we humans can thrill to their intricate songs because Humpbacks sing predominantly in the hearing range of humans.

Here is a fascinating and playful introduction to hearing ranges in familiar animals.

https://www.myihp.co.uk/animal-hearing-ranges/

I would love to know whether the humpbacks that Terry and I were serenading in this video sang back to us underwater. I will need a spectrograph that maps audio frequencies to interface with my hydrophone in order to discover whether they are vocalizing outside our human audible range. Stay tuned to find out!