Sperm Whale Seismic Study (SWSS)

Summer Breeze Daily Reports - June 27, 2005

Position at 27.46  90.47

Morning rain squalls seem to have become to the rule for us. After we tracked the loose group of whales we had encountered yesterday through the night, we had one visual sighting this morning before we hunkered down against the rain. At the same time, the whales went quiet and we searched for them for a couple of hours. By the time the rain stopped, we had acoustic contact with the whales again. We worked with these four whales all day to make sure we got photo-IDs of all of them. It was pretty hard work due to the consistently strong winds and the widely dispersed distribution of the whales. This meant that we often saw blows but did not get to the whale in time for a fluke shot. Nevertheless, between yesterday and today we got IDs of four individuals, which was the number of whales we had initially estimated to be in the area.

None of the whales had calluses, and their non-coordinated, regular dives of around 45 minutes made us suspect that they were small, immature males feeding in the area. When we left them around 20:00 local time, they were still roughly in the same area where we had first encountered them yesterday, in the vicinity of platform A (Genesis). Our plan now is to start monitoring again for new whales while moving in a westerly direction.