The early risers needed no special announcement
– nor were awoken by Friederike’s excited calls, summoning everybody to the
outer decks. Those that were asleep and were in fact woken up by her, surely
did not mind too much, as the spectacle around the ship was well worth the
effort of getting out of bed and quickly putting some warm clothes on: we were
surrounded by a large group of humpback whales, and occasionally, a few fin whales
could be seen darting their way in the distance.
The Captain interrupted our journey for
about an hour, and everybody had the opportunity to look at these magnificent
creatures at length, as they also used the occasion to look at us: they were
quite curious and spent a fair amount of time slowly cruising alongside the
ship, and that provided us all with plenty of time to look at them and not just
take pictures (which of course we did), but also to try to look into their
watery world; and perhaps, to wonder on how different from us these fellow
mammals are…
When we continued our journey, it seemed as
if our distant marine cousins were not quite yet prepared to bid us farewell,
as we had the chance to see them following the ship for a long while. It was
spectacular to see the fin whales cruising past the ship (yes, they are quicker
than our vessel), and to watch them porpoise out of the water in their frantic
race. It definitely was a whale of a day!
