Position at 28.05 89. 43

We had a promising start to the day. During early morning hours we heard sperm whale clicks and were able to follow them for two hours. Since we were sailing at the time, we were able to listen continuously using the towed array. We would sail in a north-easterly direction until the clicks were heard first through the right earphone, indicating that the whales were behind us. Turning around and sailing in a south-easterly direction, we would repeat the process. However, after two hours the clicks became weaker, indicating that we were not keeping up with the speed of the whales. We consequently decided to continue following the whales under engine power, moving in an easterly direction.

Unfortunately, at the same time several large ships crossed either our bow or stern, such that it became impossible to detect sperm whale clicks above the sounds of engines and propellers. Once the noise was low enough, we had lost the whales. They may have continued moving in a slightly different direction, while we kept motoring east and were not able to hear them. It is also possible that the whales stopped clicking while we were in the vicinity of the ships. Either way, we were not able to find them again and switched to survey mode, monitoring every 15 minutes. We continued doing that all day, without any new acoustic sperm whale contact.

For most of the night and morning we had heard seismic airguns, and by midday, we could see the seismic ship. With the help from a radio operator on the close-by rig, we were able to make a recording of the sounds produced by the airguns, while the ship passed approximately 2.25 miles behind our stern. It was a good day for sailing – we hope tomorrow it will be good for sperm whale sightings too.