Signs of Life

June 15

Today was a pretty amazing day as far as watches go. Some watches the most exciting thing that happens is that I leave the bridge to go down to the mess to make a cup of tea or coffee, but today was a different story. About half way through the watch, Pedro called me over to look out over the starboard side of the bow saying that there was an unusual green patch of water. Just as I was walking over to take a look at what he was seeing, a humpback whale surfaced on the side of the bow where the green patch of water had been, and dived below the ship. Immediately we slowed down the ship and notified the rest of the crew that there was a whale nearby. Whenever we see any unusual wildlife, and especially whales, the whole crew stops what they're doing and takes a look. We even have a buzzer system set up to notify crew working inside the ship when there are whales (1 buzz), other wildlife (2 buzzes) or illegal fishing lines (3 buzzes). Unfortunately the whale surfaced behind the ship quite a ways and I didn't see it again, but a few other people were able to watch it as continued in the opposite direction as us.

Then about 2 hours later we saw a group of small whales surfacing about 30 meters off the bow! There were 5-7 and they were quite small when compared to the first whale, but definitely bigger than dolphins. The group veered towards the side of the ship and then continued on moving off the starboard side for a couple of hundred meters at the surface before they dove and I didn't see them again. I'm still not quite sure what they were....

And if that wasn't enough, about 10 minutes later I saw a group of 5 birds circling about a hundred meters off the port side. They weren't soaring around as they normally do, so I thought something must be up. Sure enough, upon closer investigation I saw a shark fin circling around below them. It must have been feeding on something and the birds were hanging out for scraps. I wasn't able to tell what kind of shark it was, but it was still pretty exciting to see a shark!

That was the most wildlife I have ever seen on any of my watches since leaving Melbourne a month ago. It’s mind boggling to think about all of the animals that are living below the surface of the water which we never see. Even with whales and dolphins, we only get quick glimpses of them and that’s if we are lucky. There’s so much that we don’t understand yet about the marine environment and I can’t help but think about the impact that humans are having on these amazing ecosystems. As we get nearer to the Galapagos, I hope that we’ll see more wildlife and get a glimpse into the unique environment that surrounds the islands.

The weather has been great for the past week and the forecast for the next week looks like we’ll have calm seas and hopefully some sunny days. The mercury is definitely rising as we get closer to the equator and my plans to follow summer around the world seem to be working out!