09-08-2016, 09:12 PM
So I'm back from my trip, the pilot study is complete. I had the most amazing time and met some really great people.
I actually settled into living on a boat really well. I almost prefer it to dry land, that constant rocking is quite relaxing (most of the time).
You quickly adapt to sea legs and working and cooking while everything is moving around. Non slip mats are a god send!
The conditions weren't the best. We had a lot of wind and some rough swells which made trying to spot whales incredibly difficult.
So we were mainly looking for competitive pods. This is generally a single female, who may or may not have a calf, and a group of males all vying for her attention.
We were after these pods so we could record the social vocalisations. It was really cool to hear males singing and all their chatter right when it was happening a few meters away from us.
We worked every day, so we didn't really get a lot of down time but that was barely noticed and didn't matter as the conditions weren't safe enough to go snorkeling or swimming. But we did go ashore a few times, we stopped at Whitehaven beach which is known for its pure white silica sand. We also went to Scawfell Island and Penrith Island which are continental islands off Queensland in the Great Barrier Reef.
We went for a quick ride around one of the reefs in one of our small tenders. It was amazing to see all the coral and giant clams and blue sea stars and green sea turtles.
I have too many pictures to choose from so I'm just going to share a couple.
![[Image: DSC00031.jpg]](http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w268/rockamelon310/pics/DSC00031.jpg)
This picture doesn't do it justice, but the water up there is unlike anything I've seen. It is so so blue and clear and just beautiful. This is only a very small part of Scawfell Island.
![[Image: IMG_8980.jpg]](http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w268/rockamelon310/pics/IMG_8980.jpg)
A photo taken for dorsal identification. There's remarkable variation in each whales dorsal fin. The underside of the whales fluke is also used for identification as each has a unique pattern.
![[Image: IMG_1229.jpg]](http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w268/rockamelon310/pics/IMG_1229.jpg)
And that's some of us on our main research tender. To spot whales we'd have spotters on top of the main boat who would look for a "blow" like in this picture or other behaviours like breaching or slapping and then direct the tender to the area of the whale. Sometimes it got a bit hectic when we'd have different whales all around, on a good spotting day you could probably see a whale up to 5km away, so you'd have to try and choose which whale you'd be better off going after. And for such big animals they're very easy to lose!
I actually settled into living on a boat really well. I almost prefer it to dry land, that constant rocking is quite relaxing (most of the time).
You quickly adapt to sea legs and working and cooking while everything is moving around. Non slip mats are a god send!
The conditions weren't the best. We had a lot of wind and some rough swells which made trying to spot whales incredibly difficult.
So we were mainly looking for competitive pods. This is generally a single female, who may or may not have a calf, and a group of males all vying for her attention.
We were after these pods so we could record the social vocalisations. It was really cool to hear males singing and all their chatter right when it was happening a few meters away from us.
We worked every day, so we didn't really get a lot of down time but that was barely noticed and didn't matter as the conditions weren't safe enough to go snorkeling or swimming. But we did go ashore a few times, we stopped at Whitehaven beach which is known for its pure white silica sand. We also went to Scawfell Island and Penrith Island which are continental islands off Queensland in the Great Barrier Reef.
We went for a quick ride around one of the reefs in one of our small tenders. It was amazing to see all the coral and giant clams and blue sea stars and green sea turtles.
I have too many pictures to choose from so I'm just going to share a couple.
![[Image: DSC00031.jpg]](http://s178.photobucket.com/user/rockamelon310/media/pics/DSC00031.jpg.html)
This picture doesn't do it justice, but the water up there is unlike anything I've seen. It is so so blue and clear and just beautiful. This is only a very small part of Scawfell Island.
![[Image: IMG_8980.jpg]](http://s178.photobucket.com/user/rockamelon310/media/pics/IMG_8980.jpg.html)
A photo taken for dorsal identification. There's remarkable variation in each whales dorsal fin. The underside of the whales fluke is also used for identification as each has a unique pattern.
![[Image: IMG_1229.jpg]](http://s178.photobucket.com/user/rockamelon310/media/pics/IMG_1229.jpg.html)
And that's some of us on our main research tender. To spot whales we'd have spotters on top of the main boat who would look for a "blow" like in this picture or other behaviours like breaching or slapping and then direct the tender to the area of the whale. Sometimes it got a bit hectic when we'd have different whales all around, on a good spotting day you could probably see a whale up to 5km away, so you'd have to try and choose which whale you'd be better off going after. And for such big animals they're very easy to lose!
