Cetacean Sanctuary Research (CSR_03) May 30th - June 5th

The last naturalist campaign of 2011 has just ended a few days ago. All the students from Università degli Studi di Milano left the boat with hundreds of pictures and lovely memories. The weather played tricks on us, and the boat had to stay one day in Sanremo harbour, never the less it was an interesting day dedicated to lessons, and sperm whale photo-identification matching.
"Charles" was already in our catalogue and two new guys were added. During the sperm whale sighting number 8 our focal animal decided to perform an unusual behaviour. While calmly breathing and floating on the surface, he lifted his fluke up vertically while leaving the rest of his body horizontal under the water. Once again the extreme flexibility of these animals’ huge bodies was revealed to us.
Christina, a PhD student at the London University, joined our team after a field season in our Greek project in Amvrakikos.

Francesca, Morgana, Barbara and Christina

Ai partecipanti al turno è dedicato uno spazio con il percorso effettuato durante la settimana, le foto di alcuni avvistamenti e qualche immagine dei momenti da ricordare - importanti e non.

Following link is for participants of this week's expedition, showing the ship's route, pictures of some of the sightings and of some moments of the cruise which were memorable (or even not so...).