Minkes in the sunshine
Today was a difficult but rewarding day. I had two trips, the 10 and 13:30 o‘clock. Both trips were pretty similar; We had to travel very far south in the bay, practically up against the mountains, to find the whales. One whale even went so close to the cliffs that the boats could not follow it, they had to stay a distance away simply to avoid stranding!
We saw mostly minkes today. I have not seen anything other than a minke now for a long time, just the occational bottlenose whale, porpoise or dolphin now and then, for the last few weeks. But luckily the whales know how to keep it fresh; One of the minkes we saw today sort of lobtailed underwater. It surfaced right next to the boat, very calm and thrashed its tail in the water. I did not know what it was doing but then it did it again, thrashed its fluke under the surface, moving its body in the surface. Then it dove down a few meters, keeping shallow enough that we could follow it underwater. The sea was calm so we saw its white flippers very well and at one point it turned over enough for us to see its white belly. We could follow it underwater from around 8 o‘clock to 10 o‘clock (using the clock system from the boats) where it surfaced again so that everyone on the boat had a real good look!
It would be nice to see some other species of bigger whales (they spotted humpbacks yesterday) but at least the minkes are doing a great job surprising us.
Helga, guide.
