A whale at the boat ...
by firmm Team
Katharina Heyer / firmm
Soon after receiving the sad news about Curro's injury, we made an interesting observation.
A few hours later, one of the biggest Pilot Whales observed in the Strait of Gibraltar approached the boat with his family - 2 juveniles and 2 females. The juveniles amused themselves at the bow, while the male swam under the boat -- almost as if scratching his body under the ship. He turned around from one side to the other, came back several times very close to the side of the boat, so close that we could have touched him. While he rolled, he dashed with the fluke on the water, which caused an enormous splashing. It was a strange kind of spectacle - to see this very bulky and powerful animal, 8m long, next to our 10 m boat was quite impressive. Even our captain Sebastian and the mariñero Diego came out of their coach to see the giant Pilot Whale. These experienced sea men don't witness something like this every day, although they spend so much time at the sea with the whales.
Everyone was impressed by this "touching" encounter. I couldn't stop wondering if both incidents were somehow correlated and if so - what was this pilot whale trying to tell us?
