Still on the Atlantic side there were approaches with whales like in the Silver Bank.
But now I have a new theory, that Alka might be a whale magnet. Why? Because since leaving the US it has an ultrasonic antifouling as a complementary to a normal one. I wish it would work better but maybe it can be heard by whales at least...
There were some solitary encounters after that but it has begun on the way from Pitcairn to Gambier islands while crawling around 2-3knots when a pod of 5-6 whales caught up and overtook Alka and even had some courage to go under quite closely.
At the time I decided that it was all Bryde's whales.
Then I though there was another pod of whales but apparently it was just a one (baby?) circling around while we were slowly creeping towards Huahine. At some point I even had a suspision it was a shark :)
The recent voyage from Suwarrow to Vava'u gave another two days of whales with the last one lasting nearly two hours, counting maybe 12 or more, catching up and passing by, by the course towards Fiji. And now I think it might be Sei or Minke whales? Who can tell me?
The cherry on the cake was at Tonga, where people come to swim with whales. You can't do it on your own and you can't do duck diving as it bothers them but it is still worth all of it!
More whales please! Safe distance from Alka, obviously.
