Photo: Two Minke Whales, by Jan Strugnell, BASBy Jan Strugnell, British Antarctic SurveyWe were incredibly lucky today to have a pod of Minke Whales accompany the ship as we made our way through the ice into the Amundsen Sea, on our approach to Pine Island Bay!
Around 10 whales spent a few hours at the bow of the ship to the delight of the scientists and crew who were huddled at the bow together in the cold watching them. Some of the scientists and crew who have spent a lot of their working lives at sea said that they had never seen whales so close before! We were so incredibly close to the whales that as they came to the surface for air we could hear them breathe and even smell their fishy breath at times!
Photo: A Minke Whales, by Jan Strugnell, BAS
The whales really seemed to perform for the many cameras that we pointed at them, and would flip upside down underwater and swim belly up. A few of the whales came up far enough out of the water to look back at us.
From February 19th until April 10th 2008, British scientists are embarking on the British Antarctic Survey’s (BAS) research ship RRS James Clark Ross. This project is part of the BAS program known as BIOFLAME (Biodiversity, Function, Limits and Adaption from Molecules to Ecosystems). Scientists onboard are studying marine fauna from the ocean shelves and slopes from a little-known region, the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas. This is part of the Census of Antarctic Marine Life. Follow their route on the CAML-Cousteau Expedition tracking page.