THE WEEK OF MANY WOW’s
Not much to report from the beginning of the week and we were worried the whales had skipped town on us! But the whales soon returned and gave us an amazing show when they did! On Sunday the whales were very friendly. It was really interesting watching the change of behaviour when a large ship went past and all the whales actually swam towards the ship and changed their behaviour from milling to foraging.
On Monday we did a localization exercise, which is always fun as it gives us a chance to get out in the dinghy. We also did a calibration and spreading exercise for in air recordings with the newly improved microphone. The whole boat was ready to keel haul me after about 30minutes of Val’s specially made tone – that was even giving me a headache and I was 500m away.
Tuesday the 5th will now be known by all aboard the Gato Verde the day of many porpoises. It was also Megans birthday and what a treat! The Harbor porpoises (at least 20) were foraging all around us while we ate lunch and continued to drift with us for a couple of hours. Once we left them we thought it would be a quiet journey back to anchor, but as always the days here are anything but predictable. A group of Dahls porpoises started to bow ride with us, literally spraying us every time the came to the surface to breath (Porpoises Porpoising). In the evening me and Hana made an amazing cake (if I do say so myself!) that was in the shape of a whale. We all sang happy birthday and danced on the boat, it was amazing fun.
On Wednesday the larger marine mammals returned and we were all very happy about that, the adrenaline was really pumping. When we caught up with them there were at least 20 individuals and we saw 17 spy hops/breaches in 2 minutes. The Dahls and killer whales even ‘played’ together, which is so rare! They were all surrounding the killer whale and he didn’t seem bothered – amazing! The evening was not so fun, the raccoons descended on our boat when we were at the dock for the evening. They tried to get into the compost and even poked their heads through the windows. Needless to say we didn’t have a great nights sleep.
Thursday we came back to Friday harbor and dropped Val off in the morning. We did the fastest turn around yet of only 16 minutes. We then decided to take a gamble and head for the whales before returning to Friday harbor in the evening to do laundry and shower. The gamble paid off!  We had a couple of great hours with the whales before our tired yet satisfied group headed back to the labs and then into town to belatedly celebrate Megan’s 21st birthday!
Anyway it was another great week here at Beam Reach, next week we head to Canada, so I’m sure ill have lots to report.
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