Category: boating with whales

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July 2022 #3 – Bubble Feeding!

“T-Rex is bubble feeding off Wilby Shoals” the voice of whale watching guide ‘Supernova’ sings cheerily over SV Blue Parrot’s VHF radio.
“Let’s go!” I turn Blue P 90°W. We’ve been floating between Quadra and Cortes Islands scanning for marine mammals.
“It’ll take us half an hour to get there. She’ll probably have stopped by then.” Terry sighs .”it would be amazing to see lunge feeding again”
“YES!” I am juiced. We’ve only seen humpback whales lunge feeding once before and that was 4 years ago in 2018 – an unforgettable experience. Here is the link to that Blog:
https://welcomingwhales.com/2018/10/24/october-2018-humpbacks-lounge-feeding/

During the half hour it takes to get there at our extreme cruising speed of 4.85 knots we try to pinpoint the exact location of the whale. Whales are big but the ocean is bigger and they easily disappear from view. “There’s a circle of boats about 200m off the point. 3 look like whale watching boats” Hawk-eye Terry reports from the bow.

“I see them – on our way” If you can’t find whales in their feeding areas during the summer it’s a good bet that somebody else has. Boats that have been lingering in one place for a while without obvious fishing gear are probably with a whale. And people fishing forget to fish when there’s a lunge feeding whale nearby!

T-Rex and friend lunge to the surface with throats full of fish

“I see the whales! 2 just came up in the middle of those boats” I slow to an even slower crawl and inch up to the scene. “Woah!” “Right beside the Boat!” They are less than 30 meters away, in close to the shore. Wilby shoals has depths varying from a few feet to hundreds of feet. Currently Blue P’s depth sounder is reading 18 feet!. “I’ve got to move out from the shore” Jude tells Terry. The whales move too – right past us around all the boats. In the time it takes us to move 30 meters they have covered 230. We wait. 20 minutes later………
“They’re coming back this way. They may be doing a circuit”. Terry shouts.  I drop the hydrophone to record any feeding burps and belches.
“They’re making that sound!” “the whining sound that herds the fish-Uhrrrrrrrrrr? I try to imitate them.  “I hear the  bubbles………. Now they’re coming up! Phshshsh—–BUBUBUBUBUBUBUB”  It’s a fairly pitiful imitation but with the hydrophone I can hear what the whales are doing underwater and predict when they will come up. Terry gets ready with the camera but I can’t predict where they will come up. He watches the sea gulls circle and hones in when they drop towards the water just as the whales break the surface. Focusing the camera on the exact spot where Terry deduces the whales will surface is a finely tuned art, experience and a large lump of luck.

In order to record a decent signal with the hydrophone we have to be within 200m of the whales.  It’s difficult with all the boats starting and stopping their motors to keep up with the whales. But we can’t begrudge anyone this awesome experience. Everyone out here is just as thrilled as we are. And there are times when the whales are close enough for a clear recording. I am over the moon “I’ve waited 7 years to record bubble feeding”. In fact both of us are over the moon. We linger longer with our lunge feeding friends as the other boats leave, the sun sets and the moon rises. Ah…this is the magic time for the best video and audio recordings. We’ll travel back by moonlight – and our running lights of course.

March 2202 #2 – Humpback Whale Concert Hall

Vicki Aireus at the wheel

This is a recording of humpback whales singing in a canyon whose walls bounce sound around like a concert hall. It seems that whales appreciate a venue with great acoustics too! Their operatic pyrotechnics are thrilling as they vibrate through my chilled dew-soaked body in the middle of the night floating on the Sea of Cortes. I’m back in Los Frailes this time in a different sailboat with a different captain. She’s a skipper who has been sailing her 45 ft Morgan ketch around the Sea of Cortes mostly solo for the past 4 years.

Actually we aren’t back in Los Frailes yet. It was our destination but that afternoon the boat’s diesel engine overheated and capitane Vicki shut her down immediately. We spend the day troubleshooting; replacing hoses, tightening screws and listening to every sound. As night creeps in Vicki declares work done for the day to be continued next morning. So we’re floating on the calm seas off the East Cape of Baja California Sur. Good time to drop the hydrophone. Whale voices rise up and envelope us. We are enthralled and calmed. “I’m turning in” Vicki heads down to the aft cabin. I find myself on night watch soaked, exhausted and in love with the undulating stars in the black sky.

Just above the eastern horizon Venus is bright. Orange Mars attends her on one side and dimmer Scorpio on the other. As I watch 2 shiny yellow spots emerge from the sea. They swell into horns and then become a bright bowl floating on the the water. It’s the crescent moon rising out of the ocean! The whales’ songs fade with the starlight as dawn brightens the sky.

When Vicki wakes up we discover that the engine shutdown was caused by flotsam and jetsam clogging up the raw water intake. It’s no big deal and a common problem.

What was clogging the water intake

 

After clearing the intake and hoses and tightening up the water maker belt which was making disturbing noises we get underway again and make it to Frailes to anchor and snooze. In the morning I take the kayak to paddle a surf landing on the beach and freedive along the NW shore. The constant wind and waves stir up the sandy bottom. Visibility is about 5 meters in the silty water. However it’s fun to follow a herd of parrot fish around in the surging surf.

 

We spend a couple of days in Frailes recovering our energy. scanning for whales and listening for whalesong. We see a few whales but not the busy nursery of Moms and calves that I had hoped to encounter. “let’s retrace our track to where we heard the whales and find them again” I suggest. We motor out along our track for a few hours but don’t hear anything. “I want to head back” Vicki says. I would like to stay and give it more time but it takes a lot of patience to be with whales. Mostly it’s long stretches of waiting. So we start to head north in the late afternoon. There’s a little bit of breeze. “I’m gonna raise up the main” Vicki says as she unties Rhiannon’s yellow sail cover. “I’ll leave the hydrophone down while we’re sailing” I say. We rig it off the stern and hear whalesong through my speaker. “I think it’s getting louder” I shout ” Is that a whale that just breached off our beam about 400meters?”  We are sailing along Cabo Pulmo a couple of miles offshore as the sound amplifies.  We zone out to healing sounds of whales singing and ocean waves washing over the hydrophone cable.

It sounds like the ocean is breathing.

October 2020 Halloween Reveries with Whales

These are the sounds we were hearing on Halloween night. Terry and I anchored off Savary Island in our little old sailboat Blue Parrot. A lovely end-of-October eve on the Salish Sea filled our senses. I dropped my 2 hydrophones over opposite sides of the boat about 4 metres deep into 8 metres of water. We were watching the full moon rise through ribbons of cloud over the mainland mountains. Mars rose orange in the East. Brilliant Jupiter appeared over Vancouver Island in the South with smaller, dimmer Saturn a little further Southeast. Silver moonlight lit the sky. Below, a calm silky ocean shimmered, where the occasional belch of a seal or cry of a gull drifted across the water. Moonight revealed the mainland contours on one side of the Strait and Vancouver Island on the other as far as we could see. Blooms of neon purple, green, red, indigo, yellow and white flowered over both shores chased by muted boombiddy-booms as adults and children around the Salish Sea gathered to enjoy the Halloween fireworks displays.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN to this whale who was quite far away – probably 6 – 8 km. You can hear the sea splashing against the hull. The odd creaks and knocks are the boat rudder knocking and the crackles are shrimp talking on the bottom under the boat! One whale is singing all the notes – the very high squeaks and the low growls. He is practising his song for performing in Mexico or Hawaii. The song becomes more complex and developed in December before the whales leave on their southern migration.

It was Magic – perfect for a Halloween reverie accompanied by the haunting music coming through from the hydrophones. was this music the eerie wails of long departed souls? or aliens trying to communicate with receptive earthlings? No. The ghoulish notes in my headphones were the eerie wails of eerie WHALES – Whales who are very much alive on planet Earth right now. This is the music of humpback whales you are hearing. They’re practising their song here in the Salish Sea of BC before they begin their long migration to Mexico or Hawaii or even Japan. Once they have perfected their song, which slowly changes every year, they will perform it in the warm waters of their southern destinations.

No human knows why humpback whales sing or what the whales are singing about. Only the males sing and a singing male will attract other males who will often join in the song. In the 5 years we’ve been listening underwater for vocalizing humpback whales in the Salish Sea, the end of October and beginning of November are the only times we’ve heard any vocalizing at all. It’s another whale mystery that, along with so many whale mysteries, only adds to the awe that 2 tiny, curious humans feel when in the presence of these majestic beings.

Undoubtedly whale biologists feel it too, even while they conduct precise, tightly structured investigations and analyze the data. Whales are so much like us. Mothers feed, care for, teach and protect their babies. Whales often hunt and feed together with every whale having a prescribed job. They socialize and play with friends. Male Humpbacks sing and compose complicated songs. Whales from different areas have different languages, cultures and food preferences. They communicate vocally and with body language. But here is where we begin to differ. Aside from the obvious differences of size and body shape whales and humans have evolved very different physiologies in order to thrive on land or in the sea. We both have 2 eyes and 2 ears but what whales see and hear both underwater and above the water is very different from what humans see and hear. We humans do not have nostrils on top of our heads or mouths that gape open to our bellies while consuming more than 1 ton of fish per day.

Here is the biggest mystery of all in my humble opinion: Whales and dolphins are conscious breathers. They have to be awake in order to breathe. But, like every other mammal, they must sleep and dream. So they have evolved a clever work-around to allow them to sleep and breathe simultaneously. All dolphins and whales sleep with only 1/2 of their brain at a time. One hemisphere is off in dreamland while the other is monitoring the immediate environment and initiating breathing in realtime. Have you ever woken in the middle of the night and hovered in that half asleep/half awake horizon where dream characters populate your consciousness but you are also aware that you are in bed? or that the click you are hearing is your digital clock? or that you might have to pee? Is that how whales experience their sleeptime? I wonder what kind of consciousness that produces in whales?

And here is the real kicker. Humans have been learning about our planet from other animals and plants forever. We also use their special gifts to help us thrive in the environments we share. We use a dog’s sense of smell and hearing to help us hunt. We use the hawk’s eyes to scan the landscape. We tune in to the alarms of birds to notify us of predators in the forest. Plants, trees and fungi transform minerals and vitamins in soil and water into compounds that our cells can use to keep us healthy.

So why sit here in front of your screen googling for information on the internet when you can be outside letting your dog take you for a walk through a park or forest? Have you sat with your cat on the porch or balcony or slightly opened window of an apartment? Can you observe what she’s observing? Lots of folks can watch flowers, or fish, or listen to birds for hours. Try it. The world you’ll discover is the world that goes on around us 24/7, mostly unnoticed by humans.

As the dominant large animal species on Earth today we get lost in our own human stories. We root out ways we are different from each other while we are surrounded by beings who are more different from us than any human is from any other human. And what a cornucopia of differences there is – so many ways of perceiving the universe, more than we can ever know. So many stories to explore. Find someone to share your adventures and stories with. You will be constantly amazed as well as amused – and healthier and happier in the bargain.

July 2020 #6 – Raza and Harlequin the Humpback Acrobats

It’s morning in Burdwood Bay and we’re up and away before the tide drops too low.  “Let’s head NE again.” I suggest “we can sail to the Penns and check for blows as we go.” I unfurl the jib and we manage a short sail before the breeze completely dies (typical) as we reach the Penn Islands.

We float around scanning the scene but don’t find any whales. Terry notices a whale watching boat speeding out of Whale Passage towards Calm Channel. “Hey! I think they’ve stopped. They’ve probably found a whale” he says “Let’s go over there. I’ll get my camera” I fire up the engine. We head over and start to line up beside the whale watch boat when the 2 whales begin to jump. “They’re coming our way Terry” I yell “I’ll have to get out of the way!”

“A breach! Another breach! A double breach! They’re too close! I need my wide angle lens!” Terry yells. ” Shit! I can’t get them both in the frame. I’m just guessing where they’re going to come up.  I focus on this whale and that whale breaches. I don’t know where to point the camera!”  I find the wide angle lens sitting in the cockpit and run to the bow to hand it to Terry. Then I run back to the tiller to steer the boat away from the whales who are getting closer. “Why is there always wind when we’re with the whales?” I opine.  Blue P skims over the waves past the boats on the other side of the whales. Meanwhile the pair begin to fin slap. They execute a few more breath-taking breaches which we miss because Blue Parrot has sailed away from the action.

This is a perpetual problem with the Parrot ship. She’s a sailboat and the wind moves her even without sails up. And she has a lot of inertia when she’s moving unlike a runabout which will simply stop when you kill the motor. Add to that the joy of an engine with no true reverse. She’s not the easiest vessel to control. With lots of other boats around and whales close to us all my attention has to be on the helm. This means I don’t have time to get my hydrophone into the water to record any possible vocalizing between the whales. I also have a skookum stereo mic onboard but all this takes about 5 minutes to set up. We really need a larger boat with a dedicated skipper to be in charge of it. (This will not be news to anyone who’s been following these blogs.)

“Terry, I’m going to have to turn the boat with the wind. You’ll have to move to the other side.” Poor Ter. It’s hard enough to find a place on Blue P to shoot video that’s not obstructed by shrouds, stays, mast, boom, life lines or other hardware blocking the camara’s view. Then there’s all the buttons and wheels on the GH5 which all have different functions depending on the various positions of each one. It’s too easy to hit one accidentally and shut off something or turn on something else you didn’t intend to turn on – or turn record off altogether – especially if you’re 6’4″ and have big hands. And that’s even before you have to decide which lens to use – telephoto or wide angle? Whales don’t stay in one place for long.  And, if there’s more than one  which whale is going to jump? It’s hard to fit a bunch of whales into one frame. After pondering on that controlling a tender sailboat seems easy in comparison.

Meanwhile Terry observes something on the back of one of the whales  “Are those propellor marks?” he asks. He’s peering through the camera. As the whales settle down Blue P drifts over to one of the whale watching boats. The skipper is Nick. He’s an expert guide who has been on the water for years and can identify most of the humpbacks and orcas individually. “The one with the propellor wounds on her back is Raza” Nick tells us. Later we learn that the other whale may be Harlequin.

Meanwhile half a dozen recreational boaters who have gathered to watch the show disperse into the channel. “Let’s try anchoring in Von Donnop tonight – we’re already here” Terry suggests. “It’s Saturday night – do you think there’ll be space?” I ask “There’s lots of anchoring space all through there ” Terry responds. “OK, but I need a swim first. I’m so hot. I’m going to head into the calmer water and jump off the bubble boat.”

40 minutes later I finally exit the chop of crisscrossing currents to find calmer water. Since the evening wind will probably come up again soon I jump into the ocean for quick frigid dip “EEEEEE!”. I haul out to let Terry have a turn. Terry perches on the edge of the bubble boat gingerly splashing his too HOT skin and ruminating on whether he’s up to getting in when “Hey Ter, there’s 2 whales coming up the channel. They’re headed this way – maybe 150 meters.”

PLOP! He’s in like Flynn! – no hesitation – splashing his long arms like fins to attract the whales. “Take a photo of me with the whales” Terry yells moistly. I drop into the cabin and grab the camera – but the whales aren’t cooperating. They just keep on truckin’ past us up the channel.  Oh well.  We amuse ourselves shooting video of Terry fin slapping and being a whale in the water with the magnificent mountains as backdrop.

Then the wind comes up and it’s a wild ride into Von Donnop with the wind on our heels.

 

October 2018 – Breach!

After the amazing lounge feeding we had witnessed we are stoked for more of the same. Another bright calm day dawns and as we motor towards Mittlenach Island we hear a blow off our port bow.  We motor closer then stop to float- a little more than 100m away.  Whale doesn’t move so we are pretty sure that s/he knows we are here when we turn off the engine to float in parallel. We float there quietly for a few minutes.

All of a sudden whale’s tail drops, snout emerges, back arches. S/he breaches, then flips over and breaches again! “Do you think we got too close?” I worry “I don’t know. Let’s see if whale takes off” Terry responds. But whale continues to hang out near us, feeding in the area. I bring out my didjeridoo and begin playing as s/he feeds. After a few minutes whale swims around Blue Parrot in a semi-circle about 100m distance. S/he continues on to Twin Islands then circles around and swims by us again before heading South.

That’s herm breaching in the background of the Welcoming Whales blogs.

October 2018 – Humpbacks “Lounge” Feeding

After 2 weeks of administration, video editing, catching up on blogs and sending out a Newsletter we finally get back on the water. It is calm and sunny after a particularly wet September. We anchor in one of our favourite places and check for any reports of humpbacks in the area. “Someone saw a humpback breaching off Rebecca Spit” Terry reports “I’ll take that as a sign to go north” I reply.

We make an early start on a perfect day for video – sunny, clear and calm.  No wind yet so we are motoring towards Mitlenach Island when we spot them. “Look, 2 humpbacks feeding in the shadows” Terry, the whale spotter supreme, is pointing to the shore of Twin Islands. As we observe the whales moving SW we catch sight of another blow, then 2 more blows moving North – 5 humpback whales! We kill the engine to float around and better observe what everyone is doing. A whale watching boat without passengers motors in. The skipper sees the whales and slows down. He follows them at a respectful distance. When 2 whales circle back we decide to stay where we are.

I call the captain of the Eagle Eye Adventures inflatable on VHF radio and introduce Terry and I and the Welcoming Whales project. Reuben, the young captain, is heading to Lund today. We share stories and information we’ve observed about the cetaceans in our area. I have often wondered whether whale watching (and other) boats would interfere with transient Biggs orcas while they are hunting. But Reuben tells us “Transients sometimes make a kill – usually a seal – right beside my boat. Sometimes a seal will even try to hide underneath my boat” It seems from Ruben’s report and from others I’ve heard since that when Biggs orcas are in full pursuit of their prey, boats don’t bother them.

I ask Reuben if he will take us closer to where the 2 whales are shallow feeding at the surface. “Sure” he says. We hop into his inflatable with our cameras. The inflatable skims smoothly and quietly to about 200m from the whales. Ruben has a range finder to indicate how far away his boat is from any marine mammal. It is standard whale watching gear. He has never seen this kind of lunge feeding. “This is incredible! They’re just lying on their sides with their mouths open!” I exclaim “They’re hoovering herring!”  “They’re not LUNGE feeding they’re LOUNGE feeding Terry quips. Then he is intent on capturing video of the phenomenon. We float quietly for about 15 minutes until Ruben says he has to go.

“That was amazing!” Terry and I are both thrilled. It is 6pm and we should be getting back to the anchorage but we don’t want to leave. Suddenly the surface of the sea begins roiling and rippling. Silver flashes underwater and leaps into the air  – herring! They’re jumping everywhere! But listen! The sound of heavy rain showers in our ears. The skin of the water shimmers. Tiny shrimp pop up like popcorn all around the ship. Gulls are skimming the water and grabbing shrimp from the surface. And here come the whales! A couple of sea lions are feeding with the humpbacks. They look sinuously intertwined.  It’s a free-for-all on herring and krill.

In the midst of all this 2 women in kayaks paddle out to the Parrot ship. “Are they minke whales?” asks one “What are they doing?” “What are they eating?” “Are people allowed to fish herring?” Terry and I answer the rapid fired questions as fast as we can all the while filming the feeding action.

Martha and Jean paddle closer to the whales and we hold our breaths “Don’t get too close” we call to them. “We won’t” they answer. But the whales are heading their way. They begin back paddling furiously – away from the whales and back to Blue Parrot. “Whew!”  When their excitement abates we ask if there is a good place to anchor near here as it is past sunset. Martha invites us to tie up to her mooring buoy about 100m towards shore from the Parrot ship.  Her generous offer means that we don’t have to leave the scene at all!

Two excited women paddle back to shore as we resume filming. The whales are still feeding in the purplepeach painted sea-sky as we anchor for the night.

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!

2018-August – Whales Listen to Didgeridoo

Playing music for whales isn’t a new concept. It probably goes back as far as the first humans and whales. Musicians and interspecies communicators like Jim Nollman were playing music for whales and recording it in the 1970s. The songs of the humpback whales are legend all over the world. Research has shown that humpbacks are especially attracted to sounds in the 400hz – 700hz range. This is medium – high range for a human soprano voice. “That’s doable” we surmised. So we decided to try playing a little whale music ourselves. Jude brought her didgeridoo onboard(actually it’s a PVC pipe with a beeswax mouthpiece), and Terry planned to experiment with chanting/singing .

Flashing white pectoral fins and splashing tails in the distance attracted our attention so we swung off our course towards the two humpbacks making a fuss. They dove while we were a couple of hundred metres away then popped up near us and a couple of other boats. It was an opportunity too good to miss. We started making some sounds to see what the whales would do. It was all ‘play the moment’, experimental, on the fly, while videoing and controlling the sailboat at the same time, so please forgive any weird sounds and unprofessional performance. Terry makes no pretence to being a musician; he was just trying to keep the whales interested enough to stay with us a while. And they did stay for almost 5 minutes. It seems our music put them to sleep! Or at least they appeared to be resting and listening. What do you think?

(Sorry for the wobbly video, using telephoto on a rolling boat in even little waves makes for unsteady footage).

Near Harwood Island, Tla’amin Territory, Powell River, British Columbia, Canada. August, 2018