Unforgettable whale dance at Castletownshend

I WAS gratified to hear that my grandson and his girlfriend, visiting our West Cork home from the UK, were fortunate enough to witness spectacular whale behaviour when they went on a whale watch trip with Colin Barnes from Reen Pier, near Castletownshend.

How marvellous for them to be on the ocean with wind and sea and slap of waves while a humpback whale and her calf swam beneath the boat, enormous fin whales surfaced alongside and dolphins (hundreds of them) came from every point of the compass.

For young people who live inland, urban lives, this was a day in another world, a marine universe that is always there but never before, by them, experienced. The scream of gulls, the gannets rocketing into the sea, the kittiwakes dancing daintily (and death-defyingly) over the very jaws of the whales as they feed, could not be so well conjured by even the best wildlife cinematographers. One had to be there, and they, from inland Hertfordshire, not far off the M25, thought the trip to be the highlight of their few days in Ireland.

Both had been at sea before — my grandson, over the years, on the ferry to Ireland, on trips to Sherkin, Cape Clear and other islands in Roaring Water Bay, or from Tenerife to La Gomera. His friend Jade had taken boats and ferries through the Thai and Indonesian islands. But they had not previously enjoyed voyages with whales for company, or the company of consummate whale-spotters and experts who could explain the behaviour and natural history of the leviathans. It was a day out they will remember forever, off the coast of West Cork.

I am not a Facebook aficionado but Facebook reports delivered by corkwhalewatch.com, Colin Barnes’s website, brought the experience home to me here in La Gomera, another whale-watching hotspot.

“Trip update 22 October”, the real-time report said. “The 2 humpback whales swimming under the MV Holly Jo just southwest of Seven Heads, West Cork, are the same mother and calf/juv pair we observed and photographed last week [. . .] Also observed are upwards of six fin whales and 100s of common dolphins. [. . .] A delightful moment was watching a humpback mother and large calf bubble-net feeding, just over a mile offshore. Today, all the real interesting large whale action is to our east and within easy reach of Reen Pier.”

Although only two-strong, the humpback mother and calf used the bubble-net technique. Watching humpback pods of three to eight individuals use this method of herding herrings cannot but confirm the high intelligence levels and communication skills of whales.

Diving deep underneath the herring shoal, they emit high-pitched calls, panicking the herrings to rush for the surface to escape them. Then slowly ascending in spiral patterns, the whales release columns of air bubbles that form glittering nets the herring will not try to swim through. Amazingly, pod members take up the same order or position in the circle every time.

Near the surface, the bubbles surround the herring shoal, concentrating it into a tightly-packed ball. Then, a call from the leader sends all pod members shooting upward at the same time, clearing the surface, huge mouths agape, ingesting the trapped herrings by the ton. Each whale eats one to one-and-a-half tons of herring each day.

The waters around La Gomera, in the south-western Canaries, has an extraordinary diversity of cetaceans, with 21 species recorded.

The reason is the great depth of the water and the rich flow of nutrients and fish created by an upwelling where the colder Canary current and warm tropical currents meet. Dolphins also abound. Even blue whales have been seen. While humpbacks weigh 40 tons, and fin whales 80 tons, blue whales can weigh 120 tons. The record is for a female that weighed 209 tons and was 110ft long. Had the mythical Jonah set up his temporary quarters inside a blue whale, he could have rented apartments to newcomers.

It is noticeable that La Gomera’s beaches are naturally clear of rubbish, plastic or fishing gear but do not have to be cleaned. Now that the storms have abated, they make a nice picture of pristine black sand edged with white surf breaking on the shore.

From enormous sea creatures to small. Yesterday, as I stood in water a metre-and-a-half deep, a flock of tiny, silver fish broke the surface near me and flew a foot above the water for six metres before disappearing. They flashed like coins in sunlight, no doubt, escaping a barracuda.