If you travel as frequently as I do, you learn to be careful about the people you associate with. I pride myself on being highly discriminating, choosing to fraternize only with individuals of the utmost sophistication and grace:
People who, when confronted with a scientifically valuable discovery of a 351cm giant squid arm segment, would behave in a manner befitting the circumstances:
Though I must admit error in judgement from time to time, as during my most recent excursion, when imprudent choice of travel companions precipitated the need for me to undertake an impromptu ablution to expunge the unyielding aroma of decomposing cephalopod:
Besides the fact that we saw sperm whales, lots of dolphins, and giant squid parts(!), the trip to Ogasawara was a lot of fun. We had a terrific group of people, and Ogasawara is a laid-back, unspoiled bit of paradise in the middle of the Pacific that’s difficult not to fall in love with.
Below is a short video/ slideshow to give you an idea of what it’s like in Ogasawara. It’s a large file, so let it buffer before you play if you have a relatively slow internet connection.
All the images and video (including the sperm whale underwater) were shot with Canon cameras…5D, 5D Mark II, 1D Mark III.
Here is a sentence that I’ve been wanting to write for a long time: “I swam down into the blue and retrieved the arm of giant squid.”
I know. For most people, doing something like this isn’t a life goal. I get it. I’m not normal.
But it doesn’t matter, because I did it, and it’s something I’ll never forget.
Here’s the condensed version of what happened:
While we were cruising along in deep water looking for signs of sperm whales, the captain’s wife shouted something from the top deck. I looked up and saw her gesturing frantically, but with the combined noise of the engine, wind and ocean swells, I could neither understand what she was saying, nor grasp the reason for her excitement.
Following the time-tested principle of “act first, think later”, I grabbed my mask, snorkel, fins and camera and jumped into the water. Visibility was excellent. I immediately saw a long, reddish object sinking into the blue…and swam down about 10 metres to take a closer look.
As I approached the squid arm, my brain finally kicked in (the “think later” part), and I realised that the only reason a rapidly sinking giant squid arm would be at the paltry depth of 10 metres is if a sperm whale (i.e., large animal with big mouth) had just dropped it…like perhaps only seconds earlier.
At that point, I looked around in a brief moment of panic (or sanity, depending upon your point of view)…thinking that perhaps the whale that had dropped such a tasty morsel might not appreciate my absconding with it. Fortunately, the previous owner was nowhere to be seen, so I avoided becoming whale food grabbed the squid arm and swam back to the surface.
We kept the arm segment on ice until the next morning, when we had sufficient space and light to measure it, then donated it to the research community.
Below is a short video of fellow underwater photographer Douglas Seifert measuring the (pungent) squid arm:
During my stay in Ogasawara, I was fortunate enough to encounter four species of dolphins, three of which I was able to photograph.
First up were pan-tropical spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata), which we encountered several times. Pan-tropicals are a lot of fun to watch from the boat, as they can be really active and playful, but they’re the total opposite in the water.
There can be a few dozen swimming like crazy around the boat, but the second you get in the water…poof! They vanish quicker than kegs at a frat party.
We also saw two different species of bottlenose dolphins. The first was the kind that most people are familiar with…common bottlenose dolphins, or Tursiops truncatus…recognisable by their short snouts.
I’ve seen this particular species of dolphin in many places around the world. Their temperament varies from location to location, with some populations being highly approachable, and others just downright rude. In Ogasawara, they’re somewhat standoff-ish…generally ok with boats, but not easy to approach in the water.
There was also a second species of bottlenose…Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus), which are relatively slimmer, and a heckuva lot more friendly than their truncatus cousins…at least in these waters. They’re accustomed to boats and people, so if you’re a decent swimmer, you can swim along with them…if they’re in the right mood.
Finally, we saw some rough-toothed dolphins (Steno bredanensis), though we weren’t able to get photos. In fact, images of rough-toothed dolphins are quite rare, though I was lucky enough to get a nice in-water shot a couple of years ago in Tonga.
It’s been about a week since I got back from photographing sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in Ogasawara with friends Eric Cheng, Douglas and Emily Seifert, and Julia Sumerling.
There is a lot I want to write about the trip, but as a first priority, I went through my photos and tried to do something that I don’t think anyone else has done/ is doing…ID individual sperm whales using in-water photos.
(b) We were fortunate enough to see a lot of whales in the water the first few days we were in Ogasawara, and I noticed that many of the sperm whales have what appear to be unique white markings on their bodies, particularly in the lower abdominal area.
At first, I wasn’t sure if the white markings were unique to the whales in this particular area, or whether all sperm whales have these markings. I’m still not entirely certain (since there aren’t that many in-water images of sperm whales), but after checking Hal Whitehead’s book about sperm whales, a copy of which Julia brought along on the trip, I saw that a few of the images in his book showed whales in other parts of the world with similar markings.
So I decided early on in the trip to try to take as many photos of the undersides of sperm whales as possible, and catalogue our cetacean encounters once I got home.
Here is the result (the video may take a while to download, so give it time to buffer if you have a slow internet connection):
In summary, I was able to identify nine individual whales, all of which I believe to be members of a group of relatively friendly whales…the ones that had the giant squid. There were almost certainly more whales in the group.
What also seemed to emerge from the pattern of encounters is that the whale that we eventually saw with the squid in its mouth may have been the matriarch or leader of this particular group, as she showed up in a large percentage of my photos, meaning she approached us relatively often.
ID-ing sperm whales is a lot more difficult than humpbacks. Humpbacks are surface-active whales, while sperm whales dive down hundreds, even thousands of metres…and they stay down. But still, it is possible to ID them, as this short video demonstrates.
Whether these IDs will come in useful over the long-term or not…only time will tell. If I get a chance to go back, I’m hoping to continue this endeavour, with the objective of seeing if it’s possible to document a consistent population and/ or frequent visitors to the area.
The video above is small, so it’s difficult to read the text. This is a PDF document (11MB) of the slides in the presentation, and this is a bigger Quicktime video file (640×360, 79MB…Do not click this link and try to open in your browser. Right click to download the file only if you have a good internet connection.). There’s also a .mp4 file available via iTunes.
As usual, it’s been a whirlwind of activity for me after getting back yesterday from my trip to photograph sperm whales…responding two weeks late to “urgent” emails, catching up on other messages, plowing through snail mail, confirming plans for my next trip, sorting through equipment, ordering supplies, etc.
The long and the short of it is that it’ll take me a while to upload more information about the amazingly successful trip we had to Ogasawara.
For the time being, here’s a teaser image of a sperm whale having fun at the surface:
Why was the whale swimming upside down? I guess just because it can.
…just a quick update from the Ogasawara Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where I’ve been for the past week or so with a few friends photographing sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus).
In short, we’ve had really good luck, encountering sperm whales on most days, as well as seeing a bunch of other interesting stuff, like Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus), pan-tropical spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata), deep-water octopus parts (left overs from sperm whale meals…I think from a seven-arm octopus (Haliphron atlanticus)), and even a few beaked whales (from the surface only).
The highlight so far has been an encounter with a group of six sperm whales (five adult females and a baby), with one of the adults chewing on a giant squid. Yes…I know it sounds unbelievable, but we have photos and video to prove it!
In fact, our trip has been such a success that we’ve extended our stay, so I won’t be back to regular communication until after the 25th of this month. My access to the internet is restricted, so I don’t anticipate posting again while I’m here.
For now, following are a handful of sample images, starting with a sperm whale profile:
An image of Eric Cheng photographing a blob of left-over deep-water octopus parts probably left uneaten by a sperm whale:
And a friendly whale at the surface turning to take a look at us:
