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The Year of the Whale

One of two whale skeletons at Long Marine Lab
One of two whale skeletons at Long Marine Lab

2009 turned out to be The Year of the Whale. In March, for the first time I listened to whales singing underwater while I dove.  I watched them spouting, and breaching, and diving quite a bit during boat rides in March and December. Last year I went to Point Reyes for the first time where they have whale bones displayed.

Long Marine Labs Seymour Center
Long Marine Lab's Seymour Center

And, in November I visited the Long Marine Lab in Santa Cruz where they have the skeletons of two whales displayed.

whale vertebrae
Whale vertebrae

At the Long Marine Lab, I learned that whales have hind limb girdle remnants and pelvic remnants

Closeup of vestigial arms
Closeup of rudiments

And, we all know they have huge skulls

Whale skull
Whale skull

To end The Year of the Whale, I listened to humpback whales singing on 7 out of 8 SCUBA dives.

Whale flipper closeup
Whale flipper closeup

Here are some pics of a tail of a whale I might have been listening to on the dives

Whale tail
Whale tail

The humpback in these two photos barely lifted its tail out of the water

Humpback tail - barely surfacing
Humpback tail - barely surfacing
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Humpback Whales: Breaching and Singing

The picture of a humpback whale breaching was taken on a recent trip to a dive site. The underwater video from on one of our dives allows you hear the whale singing.

We were underwater when this underwater earthquake hit. The quake was very loud underwater and reverberated unlike anything we’d heard and felt before. Which makes sense, since it’s the first time we’ve been underwater near an underwater earthquake! We were confused, because we’d been listening to the whale the whole time and it suddenly sounded very different. 🙂 The sound made sense the next day when our dive master told us there had been an earthquake. One of her dive master friends had also been underwater to hear it and figured it out when the quake was mentioned on the evening news and the times matched.

What does all this underwater stuff have to do with my artwork? The article I wrote for a zine explains.