Three species after the storm
We finally went out again in search for the whales today and as always after a storm, we were quite excited. You never know what to expect on the first trips after a bad weather period, so we set out at 10:00, full of optimism.
The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining and a there was a lot of new snow on the mountains. We started sailing towards the area where the humpback whales had been seen before the storm and it didn’t take long until we were rewarded: They were still there, 4 humpback whales in the northwestern part of the bay! We had a nice time watching them close-up and several times we had a two of them swimming side by side right next to our boat!
On the afternoon trip (13:30) we managed to find two harbour porpoises as we were sailing towards the mountains, before we spotted a humpback whale in the same area like in the morning, just a bit closer to Húsavík this time. After we had some really nice encounters with this humpback whale (which was obviously feeding), we still had some time left so we decided to go on a little expedition towards Fiskisker (“The Fish Rock”). We didn’t find any more whales there and we were just about to set the course back towards Húsavík, when all of a sudden four Northern Bottlenose Whales surfaced right next to our boat!!! A very nice surprise, and it was probably the same group that has been around here in Skjálfandi Bay since beginning of August now. We were waiting for them to come up again, but after about 20 minutes we had to start sailing back (Bottlenose Whales are well known for their long and deep dives, lasting sometimes up to one hour).
So all in all, a very successful whale watching day here in Skjálfandi Bay: Humpback whales, Northern Bottlenose Whales and Harbour Porpoises!
Christian, guide
