Rockets and Whales

Last Friday was the rocket launch for the European Space Camp, which was similar to the earlier rocket launch but which I caught on video this time:

Launch of the European Space Camp sounding rocket

More importantly, this Sunday I did something that I imagine many people have on their bucket list but don't get to do until much later in life: I went whale-watching. This involved getting on a boat from the Andenes harbor and sailing out to where the whales hang out: above an underwater canyon 10 miles offshore, where coastal upwelling brings up nutrients from the deep water and makes the area more hospitable to plankton, which are food for small animals which in turn are food for whales. The boat only went 8 knots, so it was about 4 hours roundtrip (with 2 hours of hanging around waiting for whales), and the water was fairly choppy--much more than I'd have expected from the very calm beach at the Rocket Range, but I guess all that energy's dissipated by water crashing into rocks far offshore. I was worried about getting seasick, since that certainly happened the last time I was on a similarly-sized boat, but somehow I averted it, probably because I took 2 Dramamine before the trip, and sat down staring at the horizon most of the time. It still wasn't too comfortable, though, because it was really cold and windy, much worse than onshore which is actually a farily reasonable climate considering the latitude. I'd been warned to bring "warm clothing", so I wore 3 layers and my hat and gloves, but I probably would've needed my full set of gear for the New Haven winters in order to not have been shivering on that ride. Still, that was better than being seasick.

Anyway, the trip wasn't all misery because we did actually see whales--sperm whales, which were the kind I most wanted to see because Moby-Dick was part of the American literature course I took this past spring. There were 3 separate sightings, in which a whale came to the surface for a while, breathed (blowing water out of its blow-hole, forward and to the left, every so often), then dove into the water, exposing its tail in the process. Because of the shape of the tail, they were able to tell that the first two sightings were actually the same whale, called "Glenn" (given a name because he turns up a lot), which had dived and then resurfaced again. They had a researcher on board taking pictures of all the tails, in order to try to inventory all the whales in the region. Really, the whales kind of looked like bumpy, shiny, submerged logs, keeping only the minimum amount of their bodies above the water, and it was hard to get good pictures because the boat kept rocking, because it was hard to get a good viewing spot near the edge of the boat, and because the waves kept covering up even more of the whales. Nevertheless, I have some pictures, which I've included below, as well as a video of the "fluking" process (which I didn't get any still pictures of).



"Glenn", first sighting (at top of picture)




"Glenn", 2nd sighting, spouting




"Glenn", still second sighting (after some movement). It's not clearly visible here, but the Rocket Range is directly behind the spout, and the lidar observatory is on top of the ridge.

Third whale sighting (not Glenn); last spout, then dive into the water.

(Vertical stripes are due to my cheaply made camera.)

After returning, the Whale Safari company gave us a guided tour of their museum. They offered tours in English, Norwegian, German, and Italian, but I don't think anyone showed up for the Norwegian one. Surprisingly, the largest tour was, in fact, the German one, with English having only about 6 people. Now I know where most of the tourists to this area come from. Much of the information in the museum I already knew, either from Moby-Dick or from general science knowledge, but I did learn some interesting things about the whale's anatomy and behavior, and got to see the skeleton of a sperm whale that had died off the coast of Andenes (they let the bones be picked clean before raising the skeleton).




Skeleton of a sperm whale


Overall I'd say I'm glad I got to see the whales in person, even though they may not have been magnificent sights by objective standards and it's probably only because of their cultural and historical significance that we're interested in them. In the past, huge amounts of money were made by hunting these whales and using them to make various things like lubricants and lamp oil; the whaling industry was probably the equivalent of today's oil industry. Now people pay large amounts of money--my ticket was $120 after a student discount--just to look at them.

I've now got only 6 days before I leave for the US, although more like 8 before I actually get to my destination (not home to Florida yet, first North Carolina for a week or so)--the trip will take about 36 hours, with a long stopover in Iceland where I'll stay in a hotel for one night. I'm busy trying to finish up my work before I leave, or at least get to a point where I can easily continue at home without needing to physically be here. That won't leave much time for more tourism, but I'm still hoping to climb the Andenes lighthouse on Saturday and maybe go to one of the museums there.