Ibiza for Whales

On New Year's Day, we reached the Antarctic ice shelf and spent a few days skirting around the edges, venturing into the pack ice and sailing past wildlife in the form of penguins, seals, all kinds of Antarctic birds and of course whales. The beauty and tranquillity of the ice is mesmerising - being greeted on New Year's morning with the water surface as silvery and smooth as tin foil, things just kept getting better from then on. On occasion, we could spot the backs of Humpback whales feeding amongst bits of ice, the quiet only broken by the whales' occasional blows when they surfaced. Despite the cold and a leaden, heavy grey sky, it is a fabulous sight and in the back of my mind, I am still wondering if I have really arrived at the bottom of the globe.

A day later we launched an inflatable and went playing in the ice - shots of the Esperanza negotiating her way through the sculptures of weathered ice as well as pictures of spectacular icebergs were on the menu. We also tested our Hydrophone designed to pick up sounds of any whales which may have been nearby. On our way to a grand-looking iceberg in the distance, our driver Clive spotted something in the water so we cut our engine and started drifting. With the Esperanza being several miles away, the feeling of being truly small and insignificant intensified, and there they were: a group of Humpback whales swimming in our direction! They came over, curious about this strange thing floating on the surface, circling our boat several times before taking up directions towards the Esperanza! My first close encounter with whales had just happened - they were easily twice the size of our boat, their sheer mass and the sounds of their blows awe-inspiring, but at no point were we afraid or felt threatened. Although a grown Humpback can weigh as much as 40 tons, they are very gracious swimmers and positioned their surfacing precisely next to our boat under a dramatic sky. A strong, pungy fishy smell hung in the air for a while, generated by the whales' breath, but it was a small price to pay for such a great privilege.

Monday a week ago I can only describe as 'Magic Monday': I was woken early in the morning to the news that we'd come across a whole school of Humpbacks feeding in a quiet bay on the ice edge. The skies were grey, there were icebergs floating around and sightings of whales occurred in virtually every direction. We knew that the whales feed close to the ice edge, but what we encountered here was aptly described by a crewmember as an 'Ibiza for Whales'. So straight out of my pyjamas I jumped into a boatsuit and 20 minutes later we were on the water in our inflatable, heading for a group of whales we had spotted about a mile off the Esperanza. It was a quiet morning with calm weather and at least fifty whales feeding near the ice. We cut the engine and started drifting, and sure enough within a few minutes we were surrounded by Humpbacks. Our cameraman Gavin used the opportunity and jumped into the icy cold to take some video footage from underwater while I concentrated on where the whales would come up next for air.

Everything happened so quickly - first you see a few bubbles coming to the surface, then there is a bit of turbulence, followed by a mighty groan and hiss when the whale exhales - in a strange way, it's not dissimilar to Jurassic Park, except that this is Antarctica, and not Hollywood. If you are quick enough, you can observe the knobbly head and the two blowholes closing - not unlike a giant nose - before these huge, gracious creatures show their dorsal fins, then arch and dive, sometimes revealing their massive tail flukes. On one occasion, I managed to catch a Humpback breaching - such joyful behaviour they normally display when mating, but this particular whale must have been so happy about the amount of Krill he'd consumed that he jumped out of the water to crash back down sideways, creating a huge splash (and a phantastic picture in the process). With so many whales coming and going, Gavin diving into the water several times and us moving occasionally, it seemed like time stood still and we were witnessing nature in its pure form at its best. To be privileged and lucky enough to encounter this on that morning will stay in my mind for a very long time - it was only afterwards that I realised that we'd been out there for close to five hours, and that I'd shot more than a thousand frames. What I can show you through my pictures is just a small window on that world, but I encourage you to visit the Greenpeace weblog where you will find a short video of that day.

Wind forward: Two minutes past midnight on Saturday morning, the mates discovered a blip on the radar which appeared to be another ship. We stopped the engines and started drifting, thus appearing as a drifting iceberg on the radar ourselves. After several hours of tense moments which seemed to last forever, and careful decision-making on the bridge, we were sure that we'd discovered the Japanese whaling fleet. Several people stayed up during this all night thriller, watching the blips and blue trails on the radar screens until one of them turned around and started heading straight for our position! It turned out to be one of the three Yushin Maru catcher ships, donning a harpoon on the bow and the words 'Research' on its side as it emerged from the fog. Then things started moving very quickly - we decided to follow the biggest moving target on the radar, hoping that we were following the Nisshin Maru, the factory 'mothership' to which the catchers offload their dead whales for processing. She has roughly the same top speed as us, and after an all-night chase, the fog lifted in the morning hours and we could make out the ship's silhouette. Thankfully our Captain Frank, Neil the radio operator and others were right, we had found the Nisshin Maru and it was running at full speed away from us.

Now the chase is in its third day and we are still on her tail - we have left Antarctic waters, and every day that we chase the Nisshin Maru is another day the Japanese cannot hunt whales. So the outcome of this adventure on the high seas is in full swing and far from what we'd expected, and far from certain in outcome just yet. The seas are getting rougher and questions over what the Japanese may do next are mounting: Do they want to avoid footage of them whaling at all costs, including a premature end to their hunt and are they returning to Japan? Do they just run around for long enough until our fuel runs out before they go back to whaling? Are they going to refuel somewhere out of Antarctic waters? We don't know, there is a lot of head-scratching going on, and that is about all that I can tell you. Hang in there, and hopefully I'll have more news for you soon.