We are now northwest of the Flemish Cap and have found several Spanish vessels fishing for Greenland halibut. The sea floor lies 800 meters below us.
This morning I fell back to sleep again after Marta (Spanish volunteer) came to wake me up at quarter to 4. It's getting harder and harder for me to get out of bed this early but luckily I was only a couple of minutes late for my watch. I hurried to the bridge with a cup of coffee and Thjis (third mate) told me we had several trawlers on the radar so we stayed within a few miles of the closest one ("Ana Gandon", a Spanish flagged vessel) and monitored her speed. When trawlers slow down it indicates that they are hauling (bringing in their nets) and that is the time when we need to go and look at their catch. I had been given instructions to wake half the crew any time after 6am if any hauling started and at 10 to 6 Morton (one of the mates) told me that the vessel had slowed down so we decided it was probably a good idea to do a wake up call.
Off I went with a list of people who needed to get the African Queen ready and be on board when it leaves. Within 5 minutes the Esperanza was suddenly buzzing with people again. I'm always glad to do a wake up call earlier in the morning as things start happening, people come up to the bridge, the crew start to launch the Queen, and I am busy instead of just sitting quietly watching the ocean and the radar for 4 hours.
We watched the trawler through binoculars to see when she would set the net again and also spotted some large whales very close to her. I went down the the wet room, where people were getting into the Queen, to wish them luck and tell them about the whales. The Queen sped off into the distance towards the trawler as several different puffs of sea spray rose into the air ahead of them. The crew on the Queen identified the whales as sperm whales once they got closer and apparently they were following the trawler for at least 30 minutes. Sperm whales are frequently found in areas like this (seamounts). They dive to great depths of hundreds or even thousands of feet for food and are thought to forage on or close to the ocean bottom. Here, where we are, they are probably making 800 meter dives! They mainly feed on medium sized squid, octopuses, rays, sharks and various bony fish so the ones we see here are feeding on the Greenland halibut which the trawlers are also catching. Both the trawlers and the whales use acoustic methods (sonar) to find the fish. The difference is the whales only take what they need and don't destroy the sea floor when they dive for food, unlike the trawlers. Funny how we often consider ourselves smarter than other animals isn't it?
At 7:30 I woke the rest of the crew up and told them we could see sperm whales from the bridge. By 8am, the bridge was crowded with onlookers and everyone was excited to see these enormous creatures, laying on the surface, so close to the Esperanza. It was a great start to the day... just a shame I had to go and ruin it with burnt toast!
