Why do whales get runover by boats? The following video holds some clues. Did you find the sleeping whale? Did you notice that even on a calm day it is difficult to spot a whale resting just under the surface of the water and barely breathing. Some days even strong blows won’t be visible due …
“I don’t know how many whales are out here! 6 of them – at least.” Terry is counting whales diving, surfacing, circling. They’re almost rubbing together they’re so close. I wonder: “Are they fishing? They must be fishing”. It’s common in Alaska for humpback whales to form large feeding groups where each whale has a …
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 moored Blue Parrot on the dock with her nose toward shore. At low tide with a NW wind blowing us towards moored boats in shallow water it’s a bit tricky getting off. We time for a gust to blow Blue P off the dock and pull a 270° turn to head out into Evans …
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 …
Aahh! A rare perfect breeze for a downwind sail. One broad reach from Cortes Reef to Drew Harbour under mainsail alone affords us 2 1/2 hours of relaxed pleasure. We find a great place to anchor and spend a delightful quiet night on the hook. Of course there is always another repair job sneaking down …
How delicious it is to dream away the night in a gently rocking boat. The NW breeze blew away all the mosquitos and flies so we could sit in the cockpit and enjoy the evening darken into starlit skies. Blue Parrot is moored off the southern end of Cortes Island when a morning message announces …
It’s finally our first cruise of the season. Our inflatable dinghy is held together mostly by glue, epoxy, 5200 and lots of repair hours. We offer prayers to the gods of small appliances “Please let him make it through another whale season.” SV Blue Parrot is so far in pretty good shape. Unfortunately she hasn’t …
There are many kinds of lockdowns. Some are physical. Others are emotional, psychological, spiritual. Covid 19 started as a physical lockdown. But the lockdown itself is affecting the mental, emotional and even spiritual health of the human global population. Prisons of any kind, even the kindest kind will do that. The economic restrictions have killed …
We humans love the animals who live with us. And they love us too. Over milennia we have learned how to communicate with each other by reading each others body language. Because we are all binary models ie: 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 brain hemispheres, 2 ears etc. a lot of our musculo-skeletal responses to …