The accent of whales

A short story set in the near future in which an aquatic safari company uses recordings of the mating songs of sperm whales to increase customer satisfaction and company profits.

That day we left Caravelas early. The boat was full to capacity with passengers, most of them foreigners. Whale watching was in vogue and only our company was able to guarantee its clients a close encounter with the giant beasts, which is what my boss called these magnificent animals. It was breeding season, when the males come from far and wide to meet the females that inhabit the warm waters off our coast.

During the 3 or 4 hour trip to Abrolhos, the tourists distracted themselves by showing each other their state-of-the-art photographic equipment and their encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. Meanwhile, we served fruit salads and tropical juices and, for the more daring, caipirinhas.

If the boss could guarantee the satisfaction of his passengers, he shouldn't forget that he owed it to my charm and the guys from CETI. Exactly a year before, a group of researchers into the language of Dominican whales had boarded one of our safaris with their recording equipment carefully protected and their covetous gazes directed at the female crew. Shortly afterwards, they tried to seduce us with the mating song of the Northern Hemisphere sperm whales. I can't believe I dared to ask one of them for a sample of that recording as a souvenir of the days we spent together!

Since then, whenever work was quiet and I was able to retire early, I would play that recording on loop. It was heartbreaking... A sequence of clicks, murmurs and moans, which my friend called coda. It was the song with which the male calls the females for a rendezvous, after long months swimming alone through the cold, dark depths of the continental slope, from Alaska to the Caribbean.

The first time we used the boat's equipment to play back that recording, it was the end of October. That day, we had left at dawn and arrived in Abrolhos before 9am. As the ecological safari season hadn't started yet, the boat was only carrying the crew. During that trip, I told my colleagues about the recording of the Dominican sperm whales' mating song that I had in my backpack.

As soon as the engine was turned off, we decided to turn on the underwater speakers and play the recording at full volume. We did this several times throughout the day until, in the middle of the afternoon, we were surprised by a shoal of females on the horizon. We were stunned, without the courage to say anything or break the spell of the moment. The sperm whales were coming from the northeast, where the continental shelf gives way to deep waters rich in food. Although the mating song continued to play on a loop, the females seemed confused. After some time swimming around us, their backs rubbing against the hull of the boat, they decided to leave.

When the safari season started, my boss remembered that day and decided to use the recording to guarantee tourists a better experience than the competition. The shoal of females once again approached the boat, to the delight of the tourists. Everyone was amazed to see the whales' backs up close, their skin covered in barnacles like the hull of a ship. The sperm whales didn't shy away and bathed us with the jets of water that blew from their blowholes, parading majestically in front of our camera lenses. The trick, however, was soon to fail: the whales had realized that the song was false advertising.

The failure of the experiment led me to seek the help of an oceanologist friend. He explained to me that whales from different regions of the globe use variations of the same coda as their mating song. The Northern Hemisphere male's accent was definitely not successful in the warm waters off the coast of Bahia. What's more, the whales seemed to have warned their peers about the farce they were being subjected to, and devised a strategy to avoid chance encounters with our boat.

However, on that day that now comes to mind, while we were traveling towards the archipelago, I saw a series of huge vertical spots on the sonar screen, which looked more like monoliths floating peacefully a few dozen meters from the hull of our boat. I immediately ordered the engine to be turned off and called the tourists to the captain's cabin. Those specks, I explained, were a shoal of whales sleeping upright, swaying gracefully in the deep currents. Next to the larger blobs, there was a small blob. It was a calf, sleeping peacefully under the care of a school of females. My explanation, however, was met with disbelief.

When my boss ordered us to once again use the Dominican song to attract the whales, everyone could see that what I had said was true. Brought out of their slumber by the recording, the sperm whales led the calf safely away. Meanwhile, one of the females of the school approached the boat, rising vertically out of the water in an attempt to divert our attention from the others, before finally pirouetting in the air and diving down with a bang to join the group. This gentle creature had taken the trouble to distract us peacefully, when one of its powerful screams would have been enough to burst our eardrums and get rid of us.

The sperm whales' display of strategy, solidarity and complacency towards our farce made me realize that the beasts were us. I realized how absurd it was that we were using their mating song to deceive an endangered creature in an attempt to increase the profits of a tourist company! On the journey back to Caravelas, I ended up isolated in a corner of the boat, my thoughts wandering lost in the dark depths of the slope, searching for the trail of the colossal creatures.

That was the last summer I worked on an aquatic safari. From then on, I started singing in Salvador's nightclubs. Although bar managers or customers complained from time to time, my repertoire only included songs in my native language. Now I knew that only those who speak with their own voice are really able to win over the lonely souls who wander lost in God's world.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)