Back again
After yesterday had been a quite difficult day and the bay seemed to be almost empty regarding marine mammals, I have to admit we were a bit sceptical this morning, when we headed out to look for some animals. Would we be more successful today than the day before?
However, to my mind this is also the exciting part of our job: We never know what’s awaiting us in the bay. In the beginning it didn’t look very promising. We sailed in northwesterly direction, enjoying the sun and the stunning nature around us, but no sign of any whales so far… But suddenly a black back surfaced in front of us: A minke whale! We were so glad to see the animal and spent some time observing it. Finally we had to go back to Húsavík. I always remember our passengers to be still on the lookout for the whales, also on the way back. And what a nice surprise – we spotted two humpback whales not too far away from the harbor! Once again we got the proof how quickly conditions might change!
In the afternoon we were hoping to find the two humpback whales again and sailed in direction of Lundey, the puffin island. On the way we encountered some harbor porpoises, but unfortunately we didn’t see the humpback whales again. So we decided to look for the minke whale again we observed in the morning. Lucky us, we really spotted a minke whale close to the area where we saw one earlier this day. But we got distracted by a sudden blow, rising from the sea surface north of us. We headed there immediately and encountered another humpback whale. The individual was very relaxed and spent a lot of time floating underneath the surface and we got some good looks at it, before we had to sail back to Húsavík. So let’s take this as a good sign that the whales are returning to Skjálfandi Bay!
Luisa, guide
Humpback whale (photo: Luisa Klotz)
