Whales!

We had a frustrating evening spent fighting the internet in order to post Gabrielle’s blog. It rather put a damper on the rest of the proceedings, knowing that there was a work of unutterable beauty that we could not share with our eager readership!

So the following day - that would be Monday - we had a day at sea, which offers an opportunity to catch up on reading, watch the world go by, people-watch, do jobs like laundry. However I was still fighting the internet, trying to get yesterday’s blog posted. Suddenly, it just worked. Who knows why? I don’t. Magic?

Gabrielle had a bad night’s sleep last night, not because of the motion of the ship, the noise of the engines or the constant awareness of fathomless depths beneath us. Not even the mysterious person who, at 4am every day, apparently hoses down the decks … allegedly. No, it was down to someone snoring. She tried sleeping at the other end of the bed, on the floor, by the door, on the ceiling … the only place she didn’t try was the bathroom. Not sure why. Needless to say I was not in her Top 100 Blokes Gabrielle Wants To Sleep With by the end of the night.

The day dawned much like others we are experiencing, North of the Arctic Circle: grey, hazy and not much in the way of any easily defined weather. We could have joined a group learning how to make postcards to send home for NOK100 that morning, but decided we had urgent business filing our teeth. We had good deck walking territory though, so that was the order of the day after breakfast. Off we set on deserted decks, with a very sharp wind pulling at our clothes and penetrating the chinks in our thermal armour. Practically no one else was around until …

… “Ladies and gentleman we have whales on our starboard side.” And, sure enough, there they were around 300 metres away, swooshing with their blowholes and elegantly sliding over the surface before diving again, leaving their tails in that signature gesture as they sounded the deep. Of course, at that point the deck filled with excited passengers, all trying to get a shot. The engines had been cut and, as we drifted, our view of them changed.

Then a shout went up. They were alongside the ship, right beside us and closer than we had ever seen. Two of them seemed almost to know that they were putting on a show for the strange beings from the world of air and light. They swirled and swooshed, twisting and turning to ooohs and aaahs from the assembled throng. It’s a wonder the ship didn’t lean over, so many of us were leaning on the starboard rails.

Toying with us they dived under the ship and emerged elsewhere, with the humans dashing around from one side of the deck to the other, trying to maintain their view. Did we get pics? Judge for yourselves. Oh and there’s a little video too.