When on April 15th the big swell settled enough for us to get out again, we were able to get down to some serious whale-watching at last. The whales never put on such a spectacular display again as they had done on those first magic couple of days, but nonetheless showed up everyday sooner or later. However as the days went by, even if it was all too frequently beyond the range of our cameraman, we were treated to the full range of humpback behaviour, with breaching (leaping vertically from the water); pec-slapping (slapping the water with their outsize pectoral fins), fluking and tail-lobbing all in evidence.

For identification purposes it was of course the fluke shots that we were particularly anxious for, since each whale has a very distinctive pattern on the underside of his flukes, but they proved tantalisingly reluctant to stick their tails in the air when they dived. Simon reckoned he got about a half dozen good fluke shots for his trouble.

Some days the whales were more in evidence on the hydrophone than they were visually, and Simon was able to make plenty of recordings of their song. It enabled us to roughly position whales that we didn’t even get a glimpse of. An interesting pattern emerged comprising maybe up to a dozen singing whales, regularly positioned in a double line 4 or 5 miles offshore and parallel to the coast, with each whale about a mile away from the next.

We called this set-up ‘Humpback Alley’. Simon said they would be all males, looking to attract receptive females.

They also seemed to me constitute an effective shield for the sheltered water within, in the brooding presence of the volcano that we called ‘Humpback Hill’. Here on several occasions we caught up with a mother and calf, sometimes accompanied by a third whale and sometimes not. Whether or not it was always the same mother and calf, will hopefully be revealed by careful examination of the photos. When we first saw them they were just ‘logging’, chilling out on the surface of the warm, shallow water, but as the days went by they seemed to get more active, doing laps around the bay and occasionally going ballistic; we even saw them breeching and tail-lobbing together on one occasion.

Our favourite anchorage at Sal Rei was just south-east of the island, off the old fort there that is complete with its 6 rusty old canons. It is not only the safest and least rolly, but also the most pleasant, and with the advantage that the fort constitutes an excellent look-out point for whales. The only draw-back is that it is a long windward struggle to get ashore; up beside the new pier is the best place for that. A lot further upwind was the diversion to Palmeira to pick up Kevin MacCormick (Mac), but besides himself and the goodies he brought, and a lovely Maundy Thursday Mass in the little chapel beside the landing there, we were rewarded with a fine blue marlin on the way back, having, after the loss of two lures, at last rigged the line with a decent bit of bungy cord.

There were 4 meals in him, along with some to give away. The push-pit barbecue is the only job for fish, by the way, and functions exceptionally well in the trade wind! Also by the way, my digital camara is refusing to function on any of the batteries in the boat; it only works when plugged into the ship’s inverter, so I’m limited to taking photos from the companion-way. Maybe it’s just as well, it’s hard enough to find time for what you have. But here is a photo of the biggest boat in Sal Rei heading home. Guys like this make me feel at home. To my mind, about the most important thing in fisheries management is to make sure that development does not put people like this out of business.

All too often, big modern boats come about and make a killing for a bit, ruin the stock, put the small boats out of business, and move on. To what, eventually?

Life is not so very different here as at Carrigaholt, but a special pleasure for me was the Easter liturgy, just the same as at home for all the difference. We certainly have a thing or two to learn from the folk here about singing and participation! But to get back to whales, the singing died out after Easter (April 20th), but we still had some good days shadowing whales, always looking for the good shot of a fluke or a breech. Many’s a breech we saw in the distance, and eventually the chance came, when a whale shot up out of the water about fifty yards astern, but without warning and with no camera pointing in the right direction, and no repeat performance!

The astounding sight will have to rest with our memories. Here is the classic shot of a humpback blowing instead.

For all the frustrations and the feelings that one would like to do so much more, I think we can be proud of achieving what we have, especially with such scant resources. Finally we have delivered a well tired scientist and ship’s boy come mate back to the airport. Fortunately very serious reinforcements came to take their berths for the long journey home, in the form of our Mary-Emma, a budding anthropologist and OOW George Tottenham. Tony has the needle out repairing the odd sail-seam and George has already been up the mast repairing the baggy-winkle.

From a sailing point of view, we are not relishing the prospect of the 1345 nautical miles from here to Horta in the Azores, due north(mag) and hard on the trade wind, and concensus is building to take the easier way home, by way of the West Indies and Bermuda. The new recruits are all for it, and we reckon we should still be able to make Ireland by the end of June. Watch this space.

I wonder how the humpbacks make the journey north? Tony reckons he glimpsed one off Palmeira yesterday, and shortly afterwards a killer whale. Is it hard for the calves to survive the journey? We shall be on the look out for them, and hoping for the odd rendez-vous off the soft green hills of home this summer.

Joe Aston