Before my PhD the only cetacean that I have seen before was a humpback whale, on a whale watching tour in Australia. But I just saw a fluke for two seconds and then got sick.
But the first cetacean that I saw was after the PhD was three years ago. And then I started to see a lot. And one of them is the blue whale. I was on a ship, a really small ship that I was working on and we were offshore and the weather was terrible so I was lying on the bed, hoping that I will be alive.
And it was a small ship. It was I think 25 meters. So the captain got in the room saying that there is a whale larger than the ship. And I went Oh no, it’s a blue whale. And I have to go, but I’m terrible. Okay, I go. So I went upstairs and a lot of movements there and I was even worse. But I saw the blue whale and it was really exciting.
There was no chance to miss that because it doesn’t end. It really doesn’t end. Whale for days.
-Tom
This post was adapted from a voice recording in episode 89 of the Whale Tales Podcast, listen here
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