Page 18: of Marine Technology Magazine (September 2012)

?He is the owner of Whales Argentina, you will recognize him immediately because he is really an old sea bear,? we were told. But this marked the start of an ongoing research work and amazing friendship with Ricardo Orri, better known as Capitán Pinino. Capitán Pinino has six companies that take tourists out to see the whales, but he also is involved in several scien- ti c projects ? most under funded. So, we found ourselves at Whales Argentina and Pinino said ?Che Mariscope, let?s do it. You bring your stuff and I will care for the logistics.? A few months later we started to carry out the  rst trials with ROVs near the whales. First, we needed to know how these animals react to a ma- chine, particularly the noise being made under- water and the closer proximity than a diver nor- mally takes. The result was astonishing, as there was no change in the behavior. We were able to approach the animals without any problem most of the times. On occasion, the whales came to see the ROV, as they do with the tourist boats. On many occasions, they simply ignored the ve- hicle, allowing us to observe and document their behavior. And then, one day, was our absolute highlight: We saw to tails rising nearly simultaneously out of the water, and the ROV operation was imme- diately initiated. A few minutes later we were looking at the mating of two right whales un- der water and were able to record the complete scene with perfect details. The distance between the ROV and the whales was just a few centi- meters, but the whales kept going on with their business without any sign of interference with the machine. From the  rst experiments we have modi ed the ROVs to get better research results. Now we are trying to record the feeding behavior of the whales at a depth of around 100 m. This is a dif-  cult task, since the ROV has to dive nearly as fast as the whales do. The  rst results are en- couraging. Additionally, we are carrying out re- search using actual satellite images analyzed by my wife Cristina, a PhD in Satellite Oceanogra-phy. Combining Oceanographic direct measure- ments, Satellite images and ROV observations, we are getting astonishing information, impos-sible to collect without the most advanced tech- nologies in each of these scienti c areas. Ricardo Orri, better known as Capitán Pinino, was instrumental in getting ROVs in the water with the whales, saying: ?Che Mariscope, let?s do it. You bring your stuff and I will care for the logistics.? First Person September 201218 MTRMTR #7 (18-33).indd 18MTR #7 (18-33).indd 189/10/2012 9:25:20 AM9/10/2012 9:25:20 AM