We have spent four days at sea en route to Japan (August 28, 30, 31 and September 1). We skipped August 29th by crossing the international date line. Each day held a mix of time spent looking for sea birds and sea mammals, educational sessions with our naturalists, historians and photographers, and of course wonderful and interesting meals. The presentations covered natural history topics, the role of the Aleutians in WWII, and preparation for our experiences in Japan.
We have been exceedingly lucky with the weather on these sea days. The seas have never been more than 10 feet and while some days have had winds of 35 knots, the ship is built to maintain a smooth ride. The North Pacific is often much rougher.
Our wildlife viewings have been great. We have seen blue, fin, killer and sperm whales, and Dahl, Pacific White-sided and Pacific Right Whale (finless) porpoises/dolphins. Dahl porpoises look like small killer whales and are very speedy. And of course we have seen new bird species.
We watched blue fin tuna leap out of the water while hunting Pacific Saury, a small migratory fish that the albatrosses seem to like as well. We saw a feeding frenzy, this one including tuna, 2 kinds of dolphins, and seabirds. At one point the ship was entirely surrounded by jumping dolphins.
Today was amazing: we saw two groups of fin whales, a blue whale, four groups of sperm whales, tuna, sharks and a swordfish. The sighting of 20 sperm whales playing around in front of the ship for an extended period was particularly special. Sperm whales are the largest toothed whales and their bulbous heads contain huge brains and echolocation organs. They have wrinkled skin, which can expand and contract as they deep dive in pursuit of giant squid. Some of the sperm whales showed scars from the suction cups of giant squids.
Pictured (from all 4 sea days): killer whale, Dahl’s Porpoise, Northern Right Whale Dolphins, Pacific white-sided Dolphins, wrinkled side and fluke of a sperm whale, fin whale, sperm whale group, blue fin tuna jumping and with pacific saury trying to escape, providence petrel, broad-billed swordfish
