Wednesday 18 December 2013

A whale of a day



The early risers needed no special announcement – nor were awoken by Friederike’s excited calls, summoning everybody to the outer decks. Those that were asleep and were in fact woken up by her, surely did not mind too much, as the spectacle around the ship was well worth the effort of getting out of bed and quickly putting some warm clothes on: we were surrounded by a large group of humpback whales, and occasionally, a few fin whales could be seen darting their way in the distance.

The Captain interrupted our journey for about an hour, and everybody had the opportunity to look at these magnificent creatures at length, as they also used the occasion to look at us: they were quite curious and spent a fair amount of time slowly cruising alongside the ship, and that provided us all with plenty of time to look at them and not just take pictures (which of course we did), but also to try to look into their watery world; and perhaps, to wonder on how different from us these fellow mammals are…


When we continued our journey, it seemed as if our distant marine cousins were not quite yet prepared to bid us farewell, as we had the chance to see them following the ship for a long while. It was spectacular to see the fin whales cruising past the ship (yes, they are quicker than our vessel), and to watch them porpoise out of the water in their frantic race. It definitely was a whale of a day!