Call Me Ishmael

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Call me Ishmael.

How I came to be on this archipelago is no concern of yours.

And how I came to meet my strange travelling companion (let’s call him Queequeg) is also no concern of yours.

Suffice it to say, we are bedfellows, and we are friends. But never a stranger bedfellow should you wish to meet.

More of that later.

And so it came to pass that we came to find ourselves in this small corner of the world – Pico Island, The Azores - away from the main shipping lanes, in search of food and shelter, when we came upon an Inn the likes of which you have never seen in all of Christendom.

Unlike “The Spouter”, the equivalent hostelry from my literary doppelganger, this Inn was not full to the ginnels with fellow seafarers. Indeed, quite the opposite. With 134 beds to its name, the Hotel Caravelas was more than happy to open its doors to us as its first guests of the season, and, indeed, its only guests of the season, so far it is to be said.

We were shown to our room, pleasant enough, second floor (why?), room 204 (why?), and here it is that we shall be making our home for the foreseeable future.

For now it is the start of the whaling season. And the month of March sees this archipelago visited by that leviathan of the sea – the Blue Whale. Tongue the size and weight of an African elephant, heart the size of a Volkswagon car, this beast can grow up to 30 meters long and 170 tonnes in weight. As such, it is the largest known animal ever to have existed.

And we are here to see it.

And so we leave what little belongings we have, me my shaving pouch and breeches, Queequeg his harpoon and strange undergarments, and venture down to the port to meet our fellow adventurers. Mike, the skipper, dashing, with a shock of dark hair (and both of his legs still intact I should fancy), Justin, whale expert and diver (and bearing more than a passing resemblance to the pop minstrel Moby), Arne (Saknussemm), marine biologist, the spitting image of Shaggy from Scooby-doo (though Queequeg assures me better looking than his animated counterpart), Patrizia and Dania, two ladies of Italian extraction. We shook hands, exchanged nods and arranged to meet 9 o’clock sharp on the morrow.

And so it was that Queequeg and I bid our farewells and departed to explore the city of Madalena, capital of Pico.

With a population of around 1500, it did not take us too long to find the supermarket, the pub, and the restaurant. So all is well. (In truth there are a few restaurants, though we have only found two open so far. There are about four bars too. The bit about one supermarket is true).

After eating heartily, with a feast of local gumbo, barbecued fish-on-a-stick and local wine, we retired to our hostelry, tired, a bit pissed but happy.

Mmm – local gumbo.

But more of this fellow – Queequeg.

In the dim light of the tallow candles, shadows dancing on the wall, it was difficult not to watch him prepare for his bedrest. I pretended to be asleep, all the while watching him through half-closed eyes as he went about his business, two things struck me most that night about this fellow.

The first being his unusual pectoral muscles. On my initial glance it seemed that they both were bloated and hung like two giant welts around his chest, so much so I had to muster all of my strength to prevent myself from crying out loud at this spectacle of deformity.

But that is not the most strangest thing about this fellow. I swear to you now on all that is holy that I could not determine the whereabouts of his manhood. Whether he secreted it between his legs as if to hide it from prying eyes, or whether he has had the terrible misfortune for it to have been lopped off as a consequence of some grotesque Bobbet-like accord, or whether it is simply shrivelled to the size of a peanut I know not and it is none of my business. Suffice it to say, I have never seen a man with such a misshapen body as he.

But, he is a good companion, knows how to have a good laugh, likes a drink, and enjoys the company of good people, so who am I to judge him for his strange and misshapen body.

And so it was we slept soundly through the night.

On the morrow, we washed and dressed, all the while trying not to stare at his disfigurements, and left our room for breakfast.

The Innkeeper was nowhere to be seen. The building was silent and empty. We found our way to the dining room only to find that all the tables had been set (over forty I’ll be bound) and a long buffet spread out before us. There was all manner of teas, coffee, hot chocolate, juices, breads, croissants, chocolate breads, ham, cheeses, fruit, marmalades, yams (no, no yams, I made that up), jams, that’s it, jams, cereals, all laid out, a feast fit for a crew of forty or more!

And so it was that we had our slice of toast and a cup of coffee and left for port.

Mmm – toast and port.

A bustle of activity. This is how it works.

The whalers have spotters working for them. One on the north of the island, and one on the south. These are known locally as Vagias (it is true and I have not missed out any letters), eyes as big as dinner plates (mmm – not quite true), they spend their days staring through binoculars for the tell-tale spouts of whales, radioing their masters when sighted.

People used to hunt whales in the Azores (it was their main source of income) right up until the 1970’s and these are the same Vagias that spotted for the whalers. Now hunting is outlawed, and the same guys do the same job for whale watchers (tourism being the Azores main source of income these days).

And what’s more, it transpires that you can tell the type of whale from the spout. For blue whales, the spout is upright, for sperm whales, the spout is to one side (on account of them having only one open nostril).

Mmmm – one open nostril..

As we arrived at port, there was a bustle of activity. Baleen whales (blue whales) had already been spotted in the area, as had sperm whales. The game was afoot.

The boat is a 7.5m rubber dinghy that seats 12, there were 5 of us, plus the crew, and we sped off into the mid-Atlantic.

And the Vagias were true to their word. As we sped to the spot of the sighting, we passed schools of common dolphin, until came the cry “Thar She Blows” (alright, not really, more like “over there”) and sure enough, there before us was a solitary sperm whale.

Sperm whale have teeth and eat squid. They tend to dive for long periods of time (40 – 60 mins) to feed and then surface for 5 – 10 minutes to take another breath. So when you do see one, you’ve only got a few minutes before he (or she) has gone.

And so we left the zone and returned to port, seeing a large school of Risso’s dolphin on the return journey – large dolphins with lots of white markings on their bodies as a result of scarring.

Back to port for vittals, Queequeg and I visited the local Dark Pub to quaff beer and eat pizza (a type of bread with cheese and tomato) and then off again in search of the Baleens.

And sure enough, there they were. Three huge blue whales, about 50 metres from the boat, travelling in the same direction. One adult male, a female and a calf.

And they are big.

Very big.

Very, very, very big indeed.

Baleen whales on't have teeth, they have baleens (like large toothbrushes in their mouths) and eat plankton and krill, so their feeding habits are different. They dive to about 200m and swim through the plankton scooping up loads of water and then forcing it out of their mouths, filtering out the plankton and krill through their baleens.

Mmmm – krill through their baleens.

They dive for about 20 minutes at a time but it is difficult to tell where they will come up again as they can swim in circles. We chased them for about an hour, but never got as good a sighting as the first one (no time for piccies either, Arne may have some).

And all on Day 1.

Day 2. Today. A pod of sperm whales had been spotted, so off we went, and sure enough, once again, the Vagias had got it right. We saw seven sperm whales in all. Huge majestic creatures (though at about 10m, a third the size of blue whales) and tracked them for a bit before they dove, flukes gently curling into the sky as they headed for the depths and the Land of Squid.

Mmmm – Land of Squid.

Blimey - whatever next?

I know not when there will be another journal entry. It depends on the sightings. The weather. The Vagias. The news. My fingers. Queequeg.

But ultimately, it depends on my own personal blow-hole (that is, whether I can be blow-holed).

Maybe. We’ll see. Probably. I don’t know. Stop hassling me.

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Photos

Mount Pico
Pico The Noso

First Sighting
Common Dolphin

Sperm Whale Tail Fluke
Stop saying 'sperm'