Wednesday, July 28 1999

Greetings fellow explorers, today has been a long, but thrilling day. We met up with Xavier this morning to go out on a dive to look for Melon-Headed Whales, which he said are often to found in great numbers close to the coast on the east side of the island - well, the chance to get up close to them was not to be missed. The dive deck was a hive of activity this morning, setting up the gear, checking cameras and making sure everything was ready to go in case of a chance encounter. Xavier came over in his boat and we loaded the gear on board. Rudi and Trevor were remained onboard the STARSHIP and would follow us around the coast.


Xavier at the helm of his boat

Once we were on board and had set off - at a rate of knots I might add, to be precise 15-20 knots - I moved up to the front of the boat to chat to Xavier, not easy over the noise of the engine, but we managed to make ourselves understood. We are very lucky that he speaks English as well as French and some of the local Polynesian dialect. Xavier told me an interesting story about how he got his local nickname “Pipapo”. Some years ago Xavier bought some land in Taiohae - a tricky business as the land here has been passed down through families for many generations, but it is never divided up - thus brothers can both own the same land, and as the families spread apart and diverge, the point comes when nobody really knows who the land belongs to - hence the difficulty in buying it. However after a long a painful process, with much red tape, Xavier managed to get the right to purchase a piece of land. When the papers finally came through confirming that he had purchased and now owned the land, for some inexplicable reason the authorities had written his second name down as “Pipapo” and not Curvat (which is his French family name) - thus he was re-christened, and is known to many people on the islands as “Pipapo” - I shall probably refer to him indiscriminately by both names in an attempt to confuse you - but don’t be caught out - it is one and the same person.

After we had discussed his genealogy we talked about his boat. His boat is over thirty years old. It was originally provided by the French authorities and was the first “school boat” to be used in the Islands. After a certain age the Marquesan Island children all come to school in Taiohae. The school boat would go around the islands picking them up and they would then live in Taiohae, attend the school and return home to their families for the holidays. After 10 years of constant use the school boat fell into disrepair - the French authorities provided money for its repair and it lived on for another 10 years. After this it was again falling apart at the seams, and was abandoned on the beach as “beyond repair”. Xavier spotted it and asked if he could have it to renovate, 8 months of hard work later it took to the waters again, this time as a dive boat, and it is still going strong today!

We traveled for about one and a half hours around the coast at a slapping pace, and soon lost sight of the STARSHIP. We went in and out of several bays but had no luck spotting the Melon-Headed Whales. We had just pulled into a deserted bay for swimming and snorkeling when Trevor came through on the radio saying that the STARSHIP was surrounded by about a hundred dolphins - they had found the Melon-Headed Whales (more about the confusing names below). We backtracked around the island until we could see STARSHIP in the distance, then we headed straight for her. Xavier said that the Melon-headed Whales are always attracted to boats. As we closed on STARSHIP we could see that the water was literally teaming with the Melon-Headed Whales. They were leaping out of the water around the boat and riding the STARSHIP bow wave.


Melon-Headed Whales riding the bow wave.

When we came up to the STARSHIP many of the Melon-Headed Whales left the bow wave and came over to our boat, the water in between was alive with them. I thought at first that Trevor and Rudi might have been exaggerating - but no, there certainly were in the region of about a hundred animals, surfacing all around the boats

Before describing them, I will briefly try to explain the confusing terminology. (I have written about this in more detail on the new science page) The English name for this marine mammal is the “Melon-Headed Whale” but it actually belongs to the family “Delphinidae” - Oceanic Dolphins - the same family as the Spinner Dolphin and the Pan tropical Spotted Dolphin for example. It seems likely that it was first named a whale because its head is flat-fronted in shape, lacking the beak that was typically associated with dolphins. However it certainly is more dolphin like in terms of its size and behaviour.

Melon Headed Whales in murky water

Melon-Headed Whales are a uniform black, with a triangular shaped head. They have a long slim body, rather torpedo-like in shape when you see them from above, and are about two and a half meters long. They have very prominent white lips, which glow with phosphoresce in the dark. This has given rise to the French name of “Electric Dolphin”. We could see their lips quite clearly through the water as they played around the boats. Since we were so close to them, and they appeared quite unafraid we decided to jump into the water with snorkel and fins, and look at them underwater. Michael was the first in the water and he tried to take some film of them, but the water was so cloudy with plankton that the visibility was too poor to make any decent underwater pictures. We were undaunted however, and Angel and I went quickly into the water after him. In spite of the murkiness of the water we could still see them all around us. The main school of about a hundred seemed to keep dividing itself up into smaller, tight groups of about six or seven animals. They would swim by almost within touching distance and we could see their white lips gleaming in the cloudy water.

Although this was the closest I have been to dolphins - the visual part of the experience was not the most thrilling for me (remember we have had great views of dolphins bow riding before), this time, being in the water with them, it was the “sound” that I found the most amazing. My ears were full of the high-pitched whistling and squeaks that they use to communicate and the lower-pitched clicking noises that they produce for echolocation. I have heard recordings of dolphins before but I have never actually experienced it first hand - having both the sight and sound, not to mention being wet and sloshing around in the swell - made the whole experience an intensely “live” one. Naturally we wished for clearer water, but one has no control over nature and since we had motored up the coast all morning without an encounter we considered ourselves both lucky and privileged that they had chosen to honor us with their presence.

As we turned back to Taiohae Bay they followed us for some distance, still sporting in the bow waves of both boats but eventually we lost them, and made the rest of the journey back to Taiohae with just a few sea birds for company.

There was a lot of washing down and sorting out of dive gear when we got back, but that is really a small price to pay for such a great day.

Signing off for today

Janet

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