At the end of July, this summer, on Inisheer a French film crew from ‘Mona Lisa’ shot a documentary of Dusty and me for TV station Arte under the direction of Stephane Granzotto. At this occasion Stephane gave me a selection of photos that he made on the Mediterranean Sea and granted me permission to share them on Dolphin Address.
In several editions of Dolphin Address I attribute my love for whales and dolphins to my fascination with water. When I saw the series of photos Stephane made of an emerging fin whale my heart skipped a beat. The whale was lifting the water with the tip of its beak as if it was a thin sheet. I marveled at the delicate handling of something as yielding as water by a creature as huge as… as a fin whale.
Fin whales grow up to 27 metres and weigh up to 70 tonnes, only one size smaller than the very largest Blue Whale. Nevertheless the fin whale has been called ‘the greyhound of the sea’, for its beautiful, slender body is built like a racing yacht and the whale can surpass the speed of the fastest ocean steamship (Wikipedia).
The less waves you make, the less resistance the water will give as the waves will be slowing you down. Therefor swimming under water, at least half a meter, is easier or faster. Or a bit of both. The only problem is that you can’t breathe underwater. Therefor the fin whale has evolved into being able to breathe while hardly being slowed down. It truly is a sight of liquid Power.
I used to own a book that on the inside of the cover had a photo of an orca who was ‘lifting’ the surface in a similar way. I had to let it go when I moved house from a farmhouse, where I had been hoarding everything useful that came my way. And that before us had been home to 17 people, to eventually my highly compacted van on the meadow in Fanore. If anyone knows the photo I mean, I would very much appreciate a copy of it, info ad janploeg.nl
Indeed the head of an orca is more bulbous than the pointed streamline of a fin whale. But water does not necessarily have to be split by a sharp edge. As a kid I drew a lot of ships that usually began with a sharp bow edge. But then the mammoth tankers began to break the water with their bulbous bow.
This was a revolution in my water awareness. In water you feel yourself as the water rather pushes back. For many years I imagined out on the dry different ways to move through the water with my waterwing and monofin. Specific body undulations in varying rhythms as you can see in ’The Waterwing Museum’, down right on my home page. For a while I even dreamed that I could fly on the impact of beaten down air and in my sleep was convinced that I really could do that. Ye sweet slumbers, fulfilled in the water.
But where the head of an orca still has a torpedo profile, that of a pilot whale is definitely a big ball. But even pilot whales are capable of creating a minimal impact wave with their perfectly rounded heads. The last photo by Tenerife-based Chloe Yzoard is a long-time favorite of mine. Thank you for your kind permission, Chloe and likewise thank you very much for yours, Stephane Granzotto!