June happenings – sightings and incidents
by firmm Team
Text: Ursina Burkhard according to Katharina’s and Jörn’s notes
Photos: firmm
1st June 2011
Surprise in the Strait of Gibraltar! What we first thought to be Fin whales, were two Mink whales passing the Strait.
2nd June 2011
On the 1st of June 2011, a fuel tank of a cruise liner on a Gibraltar wharf caught fire. It lasted two hours until the government of Gibraltar accepted help from the Spanish fire fighters. The end-effect was a fully oil-spilled bay in which we searched for Dolphins in vane. Years ago, there were around 400 Common Dolphins living in the Bay of Algeciras.
The unsettled residual waters of Algeciras and Gibraltar, the regular accidents with petroleum coming from trade involving cheap refuelling at sea which Gibraltar still wants to expand, as well as the anchors and anchor chains of waiting ships which destroy the sea floor have put the bay of Algeciras over the edge.
6th June 2011
Thunderstorm, rain pours over Tarifa. Nevertheless, firmm Spirit left the harbor and took course in direction of Morocco. Surprisingly, that was a tour with wonderful sightings of Pilot whales.
8th/9th June 2011
Impressive and touching encounter with the famous Sperm whale mother Pigmento/Mondrino. Two days in a row, the impressive animal showed up in the Strait of Gibraltar with her two calves. She showed us the biggest proof of confidence which a wild animal can by bringing her calves, next to our boat (firmm Spirit); she sought safety from the attention of our competition’s two boats towards her youngsters. We interpreted her expression as she surfaced from of the water, directly behind our boat, as gratitude. ( there will be a detailed newsletter of the sightings and encounters with Pigmento/Mondrino following)
9th June 2011
Our sailor Fernando has seen two big Fin whales from the shore swimming towards the Atlantic Ocean.
16th June 2011
The Bottlenose Dolphins of the Strait of Gibraltar made a fantastic show for us. They were jumping, clapping with their fluke, rotating and playing a long time around our boat.
23rd June 2011
Just a short moment after we left the harbor of Tarifa with firmm Spirit, we found a group of Bottlenose Dolphins who were swimming close to the Spanish coast towards the Mediterranean. Katharina’s first thought was that they were perhaps swimming towards a Fin whale. In the following minutes, this turned out to be an unfulfilled hope. We continued direction Morocco.
But Katharina wanted to follow her first thought and asked Fernando who was up on the roof. He focused his view towards the Spanish mainland. As we headed in that direction, a call suddenly rang out: “RORCUAL!”. And there it was: a blow confirmed the Fernando´s presumption. Immediately, the captain turned the boat around. A bit closer, we discovered three Fin whales heading west. We could easily accompany the gentle giants for quit a while.
To everybody’s surprise, 30 Bottlenose Dolphins appeared again, swimming towards the Fin whales. So we could await the next surfacing of the giants, surrounded by Bottlenose Dolphins
In June we could often see the same animals swimming together. We observed the following groups:
Baby Hook together with Gorro and Fernando.
Zackzack together with her last-year-calf and FranzFin.
We often spotted Curro’s family as well.
