The man in the street will never see them, not in his entire live, even if would like to see them, it would be nearly impossible. You can't find them in the Zoo or Oceanariums.They don't fit their really, because they are the biggest animal that our planet ever produced.

Now you think, Yes,.. that fits, because the dinosaur's are all extinct.

But this mammal which is still a live, is bigger then any skeleton ever found of any creature on the face of our planet.

The Blue Whale

Up to 33 meters (110 feet) long, weighing up to 3.600kg.And...still amongst us.

Though; the last 100 years or so, we humans tried really hard to get this creature on the list of extinction.
We killed 330.000  Blue Whales in a couple of decades, most of them in the Southern Ocean  and left around 1 percent alive of the total population over there.

All this was done for the sake of a piece of soap and packet of margarine. The history of Unilever is a lot more bloody than you would think.

And we didn't stop the killing because we where concerned about the extinction of this unique intelligent mammal. Also we didn't stop because we discovered that saturated fat is really bad for our health. No; we stopped killing them because they where all gone,.. to the edge of distinction. It was becoming to expensive to find the leftovers and to kill them.

Then you where told that vegetable oil was a lot better for your health but they new that already for decades.
In Britain, Unilever was actively hiding the contents of whale blubber in their food products. Not that their costumers where concerned about extinction of the whales but because the British people thought whale fat was smelly and disgusting and should not be in their food.

The International Whaling Committee was a powerless organisation and it took them until 1972 before all member states agreed on having observers on board of their factory ships. By that time the US and some other former whaling countries took measures to ban import of all fish from countries that violated the restrictions that the IWC had drawn up. It was to late for the Blue Whale populations in the Antarctic waters, 40 years later it is unique  to see a Blue Whale in the Southern Ocean. Once this Ocean was the home of the biggest population of Blue Whales on Earth.

In spite of all this, there are still Blue Whales, but. you have to be at the right spot in the right time. We sailed through such a spot more then 2 weeks ago, just outside the Island of Chiloe. Every year, for a couple of month's, a population of Blue Whales are feeding themselves with the krill that is abundant  over here. Krill is the only food on the menu of these Baleen Whales.

Jordi, our guide, promised me month's ago that there was a chance of seeing Blue Whales but in the morning we passed the spot he was hoping to see them, without a glimpse of these rare creatures. Then in the afternoon, with a calm sea and a long lazy swell, we had just dropped our two Chilean Pilots and we are steaming slowly into the Pacific Ocean. Then the yell from the Forecastle : Whale on Starboard twenty.

I can see two fin whales about a mile away on our starboard bow. We change our course a little to SB and steam slowly on 1 engine to the last sighting. After a couple of minutes I shut down engine nr 2 also and we are drifting slowly to the whales. The couple, decides to take a course straight towards our EUROPA. They look like 2 U-boats that are carrying out an attack on our old lady.

In the meantime the call; "2 fin whales on SB", sounds over the intercom and the voyage crew is running up on deck. A couple of seconds later I can make the second announcement.."Blue Whales".

There is no doubt. The large splashguard in front of the 2 blowholes that makes the characteristic wave, as if they have a bulbous bow. The light grey blue colour of the skin that looks like aquamarine underwater and the mottling pattern that is used by scientists to identify individuals.

They found us. They seem surprised, as we are not deviating our course for them and close besides the ship they dive into the deep. One of them shows graciously her flukes. Dazed, we stay behind on the surface of the slow rolling ocean. Crew, coming on deck just to late, are asking where they are?

Blue Whales easily stay underwater for more then 20 minutes, but this time they don't let us wait that long. After a couple of minutes we see them surfacing half a mile behind us, steadily keeping course and speed, to a for us unknown destination. That same afternoon we see in total 15 Blue Whales in the following hours, further away and very close, alone and in pairs.

The abundance of birds and fur-seals prove that it is good snacking in these waters. When a Blue Whale is lunging and pushes out up to 13.000 gallons of water with krill through his baleens, one or two shrimps must be lost along the way.

It is strange that we still now so little about these animals. We know a handful of places on earth where they come together and feed themselves during a couple of month's every year. But where they go after this period..we do not know. How and where they make love to each other....we do not know. How old they become and with what part of their body they make these low tones that are the loudest songs of any animal on this earth....we do not know.

It sounds outworn, but it is a little strange that we, humans are capable of shooting a couple of man to the Moon to gather some stones, but that we still know so little about the biggest creature on our own Blue Planet.

In my own career as Sailor that already has a time span of more then 40 years, this was the third time that I saw Blue Whales and I am sure there are many sailors that never have seen any. And then on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon in April I just saw 15 of them. A privileged man.

Alles Wel
Klaas

P.S.  In June and August this year we are sailing through the next gathering hot spot of Blue Whales. Namely the entrance of the St Lawrence river, close to Ile d'Anticosti,  in Canada.
To be continued...