Isla Del Carmen and Surrounding Waters
When you were young and enjoying a Sunday evening in the claw-foot bathtub, did you, like me, slide your body back and forth, gleefully pushing a wave that would crest over the lip of the tub? All children did, I am sure, especially when the tub was filled almost to the brim. Your little body was creating a bow wave…a pressure wave of water forced in front of you before it could slide off to the sides. Out the water would fly, onto the floor, perhaps even to seep into the ceiling plaster of the room below. And if you were lucky, your mother would mop up the mess before your father saw it.
Our ship was creating a bow wave today, just as all ships do when they ply the oceans. Taking advantage of this invisible thrust are dolphins and porpoises. They have learned – perhaps from daring to ride the pressure wave of a larger whale – that a delightful push is available at the bow of every ship. If the speed is just right, they can “surf” for long minutes with minimal effort.
Now, for the first time, we can witness this phenomenon other than by looking down from the bow. At a recent refit, our ship’s engineers installed a “bowcam” – an underwater video camera affixed to the hull. It can be deployed and directed to focus on the heart of the bow wave. What an excellent device! Today we encountered large schools of both long-beaked common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. Sure enough, they darted toward our bow, turned abruptly and “rode the wave.” The camera was quickly deployed and live images appeared on the lounge TV monitors. What we were seeing was occurring just outside the ship’s hull. And it was being recorded on video.
The image above is just one frame taken from that video. It shows an array of bottlenose dolphins, including a young calf. The advantage that these animals gain from the wave was clearly evident. Some individuals were able to move at the speed of Sea Bird without even using their powerful tail flukes.
Most of the world’s dolphins and porpoises seem to enjoy this. Perhaps we will be lucky enough to encounter a pod of killer whales, the largest member of the dolphin family. Like their cousins, they too like to show their stuff at the bow of a ship. Less likely to join us are the rorquals, the fast-moving baleen whales. We found a pair today and, as expected, they kept their distance. These two Bryde’s whales, among the smallest of the baleen group, entertained us as we approached Bahia Ballandra on the northwest side of Isla Del Carmen. The entertainment was in the form of trying to guess just where these two would surface again after a dive. Notorious for swimming erratically, invariably they appeared just where we least expected them…and often far from our ship.
Quiet kayaking, tidepooling and hiking on this huge island followed. The long walkers spotted and photographed 6 desert bighorn sheep, part of a healthy herd that has resulted from an introduction of 16 animals from the nearby Baja peninsula.
When you were young and enjoying a Sunday evening in the claw-foot bathtub, did you, like me, slide your body back and forth, gleefully pushing a wave that would crest over the lip of the tub? All children did, I am sure, especially when the tub was filled almost to the brim. Your little body was creating a bow wave…a pressure wave of water forced in front of you before it could slide off to the sides. Out the water would fly, onto the floor, perhaps even to seep into the ceiling plaster of the room below. And if you were lucky, your mother would mop up the mess before your father saw it.
Our ship was creating a bow wave today, just as all ships do when they ply the oceans. Taking advantage of this invisible thrust are dolphins and porpoises. They have learned – perhaps from daring to ride the pressure wave of a larger whale – that a delightful push is available at the bow of every ship. If the speed is just right, they can “surf” for long minutes with minimal effort.
Now, for the first time, we can witness this phenomenon other than by looking down from the bow. At a recent refit, our ship’s engineers installed a “bowcam” – an underwater video camera affixed to the hull. It can be deployed and directed to focus on the heart of the bow wave. What an excellent device! Today we encountered large schools of both long-beaked common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. Sure enough, they darted toward our bow, turned abruptly and “rode the wave.” The camera was quickly deployed and live images appeared on the lounge TV monitors. What we were seeing was occurring just outside the ship’s hull. And it was being recorded on video.
The image above is just one frame taken from that video. It shows an array of bottlenose dolphins, including a young calf. The advantage that these animals gain from the wave was clearly evident. Some individuals were able to move at the speed of Sea Bird without even using their powerful tail flukes.
Most of the world’s dolphins and porpoises seem to enjoy this. Perhaps we will be lucky enough to encounter a pod of killer whales, the largest member of the dolphin family. Like their cousins, they too like to show their stuff at the bow of a ship. Less likely to join us are the rorquals, the fast-moving baleen whales. We found a pair today and, as expected, they kept their distance. These two Bryde’s whales, among the smallest of the baleen group, entertained us as we approached Bahia Ballandra on the northwest side of Isla Del Carmen. The entertainment was in the form of trying to guess just where these two would surface again after a dive. Notorious for swimming erratically, invariably they appeared just where we least expected them…and often far from our ship.
Quiet kayaking, tidepooling and hiking on this huge island followed. The long walkers spotted and photographed 6 desert bighorn sheep, part of a healthy herd that has resulted from an introduction of 16 animals from the nearby Baja peninsula.
