All the gunners assert that the sei whale can reach a greater speed in its first rush after being harpooned than any other large cetacean, and I have seen animals which were not killed at once dash off like a hooked bluefish. But the first wild rush is soon ended and the whale is generally easily killed because it does not have the strength and staying power of its larger relatives, the finback and the blue whale.
On land the African hunting leopard, or cheetah (Acinomyx jubatus), parallels the sei whale, and for a few hundred yards can probably distance any other animal, although it too soon tires if the chase is long.
CHAPTER X
A LONG BLUE WHALE CHASE
“Suddenly a cloud of white vapor shot into our very faces and a great dripping body rounded out under the ship’s bow. The click of the camera was followed by the deafening roar of the gun.”
Captain Fred Olsen had invited me to spend a week with him aboard the Rekkusu Maru, and for five days we had been at sea losing both coal and patience chasing finbacks with but one whale to our credit. The fifth evening, after a hard day’s work with no results, the ship was headed for Kamaishi, a good harbor some seventy miles from Aikawa.
At 9:30 the Rekkusu was in quiet water well within the bay and when we came on deck for a look around we could see by their lights two whale ships riding smoothly at short anchor chains only a little distance away. One was Daito No. 2, Captain Larsen, with whom I had hunted humpback whales off the coast of Vancouver Island two years before when he had the St. Lawrence; the other, the Airondo Maru, Captain Reidar Jacobsen’s ship. Both Olsen and myself were tired so we did not go aboard but turned in at ten o’clock and were soon asleep.
The next morning I was awakened by the alternate starting and stopping of the engines and knew that already a whale had been sighted. It was seven o’clock and dressing hurriedly I ran on deck to find the ship rolling about in a heavy sea and a cold rain falling. I got into a suit of oilskins and then climbed to the bridge. My greeting of “O hayo” (good morning) was answered by the man at the wheel, who said they were hunting a shiro-nagasu (blue whale), which had been found about six o’clock and had almost given a shot. Captain Olsen was at the gun and waved his hand in greeting just as we heard the metallic whistle of the spout on the starboard bow.
I got the camera ready for use, protecting it as much as possible with the flap of my oilskin jacket, but was rather dubious as to how successful the pictures would be. The driving rain covered the lens with a film of water as soon as the coat was lifted, and I knew that trouble could be expected with the shutter when the dampness had penetrated to its curtain. The whale came up two or three times and through the field glasses I could see its diminutive dorsal fin and blue-gray back which, in the rain, appeared to be exactly the color of the water.
