In the pack he sometimes gets more, as in the case of Balaenoptera
acutorostrata (Piked whale) on March 3, 1911. The ship "was ploughing her
way through thick pack-ice, in which the water was freezing between the
floes, so that the only open spaces for miles around were those made by
the slow movement of the ship. We saw several of these whales during the
day, making use of the holes in the ice near the ship for the purpose of
blowing. There was scarcely room between the floes for the whales to come
up to blow in their usual manner, which consists in rising almost
horizontally, and breaking the surface of the water with their backs. On
this occasion they pushed their snouts obliquely out of the water, nearly
as far as the eye, and after blowing, withdrew them below the water
again. Commander Pennell noted that several times one rested its head on
a floe not twenty feet from the ship, with its nostrils just on the
water-line; raising itself a few inches, it would blow and then subside
again for a few minutes to its original position with its snout resting
on the floe. They took no notice of pieces of coal which were thrown at
them by the men on board the ship."[69]
But no whale which we saw in the pack, and we often saw it elsewhere
also, was so imposing as the great Blue whale, some of which were
possibly more than 100 feet long.
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