Where Did They Go?

Today was a bit of a puzzle. Due to heavier winds and swell around our favored locations, we started our day well south of where we have had the most luck in this area. The conditions were better than expected and the heavier seas were further to the north. Consequently, we adapted our search plan to proceed to the area where we found multiple groups yesterday. Conditions ranged from acceptable to excellent throughout the day, though we did get some rolling swell by late afternoon. We covered quite a lot of ocean, moving down the canyon edges around the 1500m contours that haven proven to be good here but, despite having workable conditions from dawn to dusk, we did not have a single beaked whale sighting all day. A few fin whales were seen, along with the occasional group of dolphins, but it was puzzlingly quiet.

The forecast is for marginal conditions over much of our area tomorrow, but we are hoping for better than expected weather again and for the beaked whales to 'pop up like mushrooms' as was described on one of our better days by one of our Italian colleagues.