
Freedivers who swim with whales - agarttha
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29209139
======
srean
Re-purposing and embellishing an old comment of mine:

Among all free diving warm blooded animals sperm whales go the deepest. They
dive to depths 25 times deeper than their other equally famous and endangered
cousin the blue whales. To give an idea of how deep they dive, here is a
picture [http://i.imgur.com/ESp2j.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/ESp2j.jpg) It needs
to be magnified for perspective and for the little surprise at the bottom.

They are also fast divers/risers. It is interesting how they manage to hold
their breath for so long and yet manage to survive the bends (decompression
sickness. They do get bends related damage but they can survive it).

The whales are challenging our assumptions about animal intelligence, empathy,
society, culture and language. For a long time we believed that the primates
were at the top. Search Ted talks and youtube for dolphin intelligence, dont
miss the Attenborough ones. For lack of a better word they are just amazing.

Dolphins are for example known to build difficult to make toys (air bubble
vortex rings) just to entertain themselves. They have to discover how to make
it. Sometimes they can be quite possessive, they would break the toy if
someone not so knowledgeable wants to play with it. Once a dolphin figures it
out how to make one, his/her peers eventually figure it out as well. So it
kind of spreads within a group like fashion, their version of the hula hoop.

This behavior has been observed both in captivity and in the wild. Dolphins in
captivity try to imitate us and seem to have no trouble mapping our body parts
to theirs.

A story goes that a scientist observing an young dolphin from an underwater
portal had blown a cloud of cigarette smoke at it (on the human side of the
glass). The dolphin promptly went to its mother and did the same to the
scientist with dolphin milk ! Which BTW is almost as thick as tooth paste and
is more squirted out than sucked.

It is now strongly believed that dolphins and killer whales call each other by
name. Dolphins in captivity try to imitate human speech which takes enormous
effort on their part because unlike for example parrots their vocal tract is
not conducive for this at all. People believe this to be an indication of
their strong desire to communicate with us.

And they originated from ungulates: hoofed warm blooded animals. It came as a
surprise to me that that there were hoofed carnivorous animals.

@walterbell thats my favorite part of posting this. I say wait for it, a
fellow HN'er will surely be here with the answer any time now....and I was
right :) You saw the weird octopus headed thing right ? that's a hint.

~~~
oska
Your interesting comment led me to do some more reading on whales and it seems
that Cuvier's Beaked Whale now holds the record for both deepest and longest
diving mammal.

A study of this whale published in March of this year recorded a dive of 2,992
meters (9,816 feet) and another dive lasting 137.5 min.

Pop science article:
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140326-cuvie...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140326-cuvier-
beaked-whale-record-dive-depth-ocean-animal-science/)

Actual study:
[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0092633)

~~~
srean
Thanks for the comment, I stand corrected.

------
leeoniya
> The gurgle of scuba equipment, submarines and robots that are normally used
> to study marine life tend to spook whales. To avoid scaring them, the Dare
> Win team have abandoned much of this technology and use freediving
> techniques instead, using only a mask, flippers, and a single breath of air
> to dive dozens of feet deep into the ocean.

SCUBA doesnt make any more noise than freediving other than the bubbles, which
can be solved by using (somewhat expensive) rebreathers [1][2]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebreather](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebreather)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebreather_diving#Other_advanta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebreather_diving#Other_advantages)

~~~
soci
Scuba diving does make A LOT of noise indeed.

When I freedive I can hear scubadivers by their loud sound from far away; even
when I cannot see them underwater nor their boats on the surface. Then, I
change location because I know I won't be able to catch any fish where they
are.

Even the slightest noise can scare fish, not to say marine mammals like
whales. Of course I'm talking of those in open waters, not in marine reserves
where they are used to humans.

I've been swimming with dolphins in the Mediterranean but they were very shy.
Friends of mine have been freediving with common rorquals (2nd largest whale
in the world, 75Ton) also in the Med. Their pictures which I'm no sure I'm
allowed to share are just breathtaking. We, the human beings are so small
compared to whales!

Also, a friend of mine has a rebreather. It's quite an expensive equipment and
needs a special training in order to be used. They are quite complex too
compared to regular scuba. Besides making no bubbles, rebreathers allow longer
dive times. It's the best way to approach marine life without scaring all
animals around besides freediving.

~~~
mironathetin
Is it true, that a freediver can stay under water for 4 minutes? I recently
held my breath for as long as I could and measured 4 minutes (I am a trained
swimmer). But without moving at all and the last minute tends to be - painfull
:o)

Are there techniques, or is it just training?

~~~
lutusp
> Is it true, that a freediver can stay under water for 4 minutes?

Yes. It's true. This doesn't mean anyone can do it.

> Are there techniques, or is it just training?

Yes to both. One technique is to over-oxygenate yourself before diving.
Another is to minimize oxygen use while on the dive, easier said than done,
but possible.

And four minutes isn't all that special:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2154442/Free-
diver-b...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2154442/Free-diver-breaks-
world-record-holding-breath-underwater-22-22-minutes.html)

~~~
mironathetin
Impressive. 20 minutes. Of course only 10 minutes without oxygen.

------
thret
Even accepting that whales are peace-loving, gentle creatures who mean no harm
- isn't this insanely dangerous? They are enormous and massive. They could
accidentally crush you and not even realise it, like a dog playing with a
beetle.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Sure is. The article acknowledges this:

> I never wanted to swim with sperm whales. I'm not an adrenaline junky with a
> death wish

> while swimming side-by-side with them, sperm whales can accidentally smother
> you, decapitate you with their tails, and many researchers believe they can
> also vibrate your body to death with their most intense vocalisations if
> they choose

I occasionally step on snails despite, for the obvious reasons, being quite
willing to go out of my way to avoid doing so. Same problem here.

