We had to search for it a while and sweat it a little bit, but we did manage to get our tag back that had been riding around on the Cuvier's beaked whale we tagged and played sounds back to yesterday. With fog limiting our visibility, the clock ticking for our last full day on the water (with us 60 miles offshore), and the small boats being limited in fuel, we stayed on it. Just before noon it came off the whale on a deep dive, floated to the surface, and began phoning home so we could go get it. When we scooped it out of the sea and found it full of data there was much rejoicing
Later in the day we tried to find some other species that we could do a final bit of work with. While we didn't find the other beaked whales or Risso's dolphins we were looking for, we did find a great mixed feeding aggregation of Pacific white-sided dolphins and California sea lions just thrashing and jumping through large bait balls at the surface.
Photos courtesy: B. Southall, A. Friedlaender
Comments