NASA’s Golden Record. Click on the photo to read more about the program!
Aloha,
On Thursday, we only ran one dedicated Whale Watch Cruise, and just like on Wednesday, it was our Wake up with the Whales Cruise. On this cruise we got an opportunity to test our theory that Humpbacks are attracted to noisy boats. After looking at a couple of different whales who spouted and sounded, and one pec slapper fairly close by, a pod of two mature, very large whales surfaced at our stern. We encouraged everyone to start making noise, and we watched as these two Humpbacks made a 90 degree turn and headed right towards the boat. When they were just about 100 feet away, they both dove, and after a few minutes of wondering where they were, we looked down and spotted them circling about 30 feet underneath us. So, does surface noise actually peak the curiosity of the whales? It sure seemed to be the case for these two Humpbacks!
Throughout the course of this cruise, we saw at least 16 different Humpbacks, and when we deployed our hydrophone, the sounds we heard were so loud and clear that we actually tried it a second time and heard even more loud, clear vocalizations and songs.
Have a great weekend…I’ll send out a recap of our weekend sightings on Monday!
Mahalo,
Claire
Ocean Sports Whale Fact of the Day: The haunting song of the Humpback has actually traveled beyond our oceans. In 1977, NASA launched two Voyager space crafts. Aboard each was a golden record with a collection of sights, sounds and greetings from Earth in 54 different human languages. These records also included greetings from Humpback whales! And that was just the first time the whales’ song traveled beyond our planet…On Earth Day (4/22) in 2005, a private organization called Deep Space Network broadcast a live feed from a hydrophone off the coast of Maui of the Humpbacks singing. They used a five meter parabolic dish antenna and broadcast the sounds about 18 trillion miles into deep space. So far, we’ve yet to receive a response.