Iceland: Epilogue part 4

The final chapter in the epic that has turned out to be my Icelandic Epilogue! So far I have covered places and animals encountered in Iceland, but I've decided to finish this story with the most important aspect...

The People

Undoubtedly it is the people that I have found here in Iceland that are the best part of my time here. 

When I was in Húsavík I had the absolute honour of living with some of the most influential and entertaining people I've known.

Tania, Ailie, Naomi. I remember this was Ailie's birthday and we hiked the mountain behind the town. This was just days after my arrival but you can see by the size of my smile I am already at home.

My Húsavík girls! Naomi, Ailie, Tania and Charla! We have the crazy girl from Hong Kong who's volume could only be matched by a certain Kiwi. The Portuguese lady is still my only reference to Portugal and has done a damn fine job representing the country. And lastly myself and a certain Canadian formed the unbeatable duo, Charck Attack!

We were together for just two months but it feels like a lifetime, and even now we keep in contact.
I can't count how many times we laughed like madmen over a G&T.

This was the first time I have spent such an elongated period out of the country, this could have been an uncomfortable and difficult time but I was welcomed into the country fantastically. Thank you guys so much!

Then in Reykjavík I would go on to meet an incredible number of people!

Loes the Dutch and Megan the Kiwi. Megan had an adventurous spirit I've never seen matched, who else would on days off take bus trips to random towns that a tourist would never visit? At stupid hours in the morning too!

Loes you were my only tea buddy in Reykjavík! And though our snowman only lasted one day it's safe to say our friendship will last much longer! One of few people who can say that they love Humpbacks even more than me!

 

The penultimate set of researchers I would meet! Here we have myself, Rowena and Aymeric posing with the northern lights at the Sun Voyager

Aymeric, me and Hanna at the horse theatre show. Yeah horse theatre... it was... special. Some of the horses didn't want to follow stage directions.

This year has just been life changing. In so many ways. Of course getting the job and such will have a huge impact on my life from now, but my experiences with so many people have done so much more. There are people who I will remain friends with for as long as I have a memory, there are so many people who have given me memories that will last even after my memory leaves. And there was even people who I grew to care about, more than was logical.

But no matter what, no matter the pain of being apart. What will always remain are the memories of every new thing experienced, every drink toasted, every whale seen, every hand held and every laugh shared.

These people became my family. They took me in and have given me so much.

I can never give enough thanks to the people in my life, a 20 year old moving to another country on his own with no idea of what or where he will end up could end in disaster. If it weren't for these people then it likely would have. It's been a rollercoaster, but at least the ups have been higher than the downs.

So this is goodbye then. But before I sign off one last time I will leave you with the story of my greatest northern lights experience and a picture which doesn't come close to showing you how it felt to be there.

I will quote what I wrote when I saw this, that's the best way to recapture the moment.
"The sky was alight with a display, you could look in every direction and there would be something new to see! The most common colour to see during an auroral display is green, the rarest is red and you also get blue and purple auroras sometimes. Well tonight we had ourselves a green and RED display!
There was even one moment when a huge beam spread over our heads and then circled above us forming a tight ball.
Then the ball... exploded.

It was like a film showing a flower blooming except it was a green and red ball of angelic delight, it is so hard to describe. It was a perfect thing to see, unfortunately as it was directly above me it was nearly impossible to take a picture of it but that was just one of those times where you need to see it rather than take a picture of it."

 Takk fyrir allt Ísland. I'll be back.

Thanks for reading,
Jack Ball. Signing off.

Iceland: Epilogue part 3

Where them whales at then? I thought you were a cetacean specialist and spent most of the last year watching them? Have you been lying to us?!

If you are one of the many people expressing this then have no fear because it is time for my tribute to the stars of the show!
I shall present this in a manner resembling my tours and start with the 4 most common species found around Iceland.

Harbour Porpoise (Phocoena phocoena)

So this the smallest and most elusive species we find on our tours and as such photographing them is very difficult. In fact on my tours when we would see a porpoise on my tours I would initiate the "Porpoise Challenge ©" whereby the first person to get any kind of picture of a porpoise could claim a free drink at the bar from me. This was only ever completed once. It takes practice to get photos of these guys, so the few shots I have are ones that I am proud of.

You can see his little face!

These two pictures were taken on the same day but you can see that the sea isn't exactly calm. Normally you need great conditions to see them but this day was so special that even high waves don't hide the porpoises. To be honest even on good days I would rarely even try to take pictures of them so I have seen them much more than I have pictures of them.

White-Beaked Dolphin (Lagenorhynchus albirostris)

The white beaks! The only species of dolphin seen on a common basis on our tours, a really beautiful species with black and white stripes along their large bodies. A joke I am very fond of using on my tours is that normal dolphins may have much thinner bodies but real dolphins have curves. In Reykjavík these were a much more common sight than in Húsavík and very often were the saviour of tours. I can't count how many times we would spend two hours chasing elusive whales before coming across a pod of leaping dolphins to lift everyone's spirits.

And they are incredibly photogenic, especially when they bow-ride at the front of the boat or leap metres out of the water.

Here we have the acrobatic behaviour displayed by the dolphins but you can also see how chunky the bodies are of this species. This kind of breach isn't the most graceful, in fact this particular dolphin was doing this in order to look at our boat. The set of pictures show it angling its head toward the boat at all times.

This is a much more graceful and playful dolphin, again leaping but this time it was right at the front of the boat and interacting with our bow. Also my best white beak picture I reckon!

Of course as these are dolphins they are social animals too, but this is unlike some tropical species which will travel in pods of hundreds of thousands. I did once across a whole tour see around 200 dolphins, but that was an incredible day where the entire bay was filled with dolphins. Aside from that a normal pod would be around 4-10 individuals large.

Minke Whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata)

Ah the Minke Whale, by far the most common species we saw on our tours in Reykjavík. And the butt of many jokes by whale watching guides around the country. It is smallest baleen whale and unlike the more popular Humpback Whale it rarely displays acrobatic behaviour. In fact guides in the north would often tell me how they couldn't speak for more than a few minutes about this species if pushed, whereas in Reykjavík we have to base our entire tours around them. (They have it easy in the north!).

But I seem to have a charm with this species, I managed to be very very lucky with Minke Whales! If there was a Minke breaching, I was probably guiding. If it was lunging or playing then again I would be on board. So while they had a reputation for being boring I saw some seriously exciting stuff from them.

This was an utterly unique tour. The single greatest interaction with a Minke that I have had.
There was a juvenile that was extremely interested in our boat, at first it was circling us and kept coming up next to us. On its own this is special. But then it did something extraordinary. The whale came up on our left, brought its head out of the water... then proceeded to open and close its mouth at the surface. It wasn't feeding as there was no fish there. So it was simply looking at this boat and almost mouthing words to us. I really wish I could explain why this happened but the only explanation would be that this was a very young playing with us.

And this is a fairly normal picture of a Minke Whale, just to see what I would normally see on these tours. Great sea conditions though!

Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)

There's many people who know just how much I've been looking forward to writing this section. To say that I love Humpback Whales is an understatement. They are my favourite cetacean by a long way, most people prefer the (still awesome) Orca but for me the Humpback takes the gold.

I could talk and type for hours about this species, but I'll just say that they move with a grace absent from virtually everything else. They have a curiosity that is evidence of great intelligence. They sing like angels and their breathing sends shivers down my spine. The almighty flukes of the Humpback are their trademark and every time one is raised it is hard not to grin like an idiot. Also when they breach I scream like a girl.

POWER! The water cascades from the tip of the fluke as it tosses the Atlantic about as if it were naught but a feather!

I only want to put two pictures per species in order not to make this longer than it already is. So among the plethora of choices available I have chosen this lovely picture of a Humpback sat at the surface. I could show them doing any number of powerful things but this was always my favourite thing about them. The way they sit at the surface, the epitome of calm, there was a few times I was brought to tears guiding and this kind of thing would set me off. To me there are few more beautiful sights.

Killer Whale (Orcinus orca)

The one 90% of tourists ask about! Do we see orca here? Well yes we do but it is very rare, but when it does happen... it's incredible. I vividly remember my first sight of a Killer Whale. It was early December and we were sailing back to the city. So I was downstairs (I was a researcher at this point) filling out data forms. Then the guide, Freydís, says on the mic that there had been a huge black dorsal fin spotted in the distance. At this point we sprint upstairs, forgetting my gloves in winter of course. But I really don't care! This is a single male, clearly very old by the marks on his huge dorsal fin. Very odd to see a single orca rather than a pod but my first sighting still made me incredibly happy.

Then over the rest of the year we saw orca around 6 more times, at a guess. My pictures from the first encounter are poor but I have some really excellent ones from later.

Okay so this is two species, but how awesome is it that there were Humpback Whales and Killer Whales feeding in the same location! And to get them side by side, this was a tour worth remembering!

I just love how defined the body of the Orca is here, you have the remains of the blow coming out of the blowhole and the white patch over the eye. The dorsal fin shows this is an adult male, the fin is very large and has a round bump in the middle.

Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus)

There was only once I was lucky enough to spy the second largest species of whale, but this was a tour that I will never forget. This was in Húsavík and as we were contemplating whether to go out on the last tour of the day the call came in that Fin Whales had been spotted in the bay. This made up our minds for us instantly. We set sail and immediately saw a huge blow from a whale clearly a lot larger than something we normally see. Fin Whales are incredibly fast and showed this here, whenever we arrived to the area where they were last they had moved very far away. We gave pursuit for a while and started to get tired, then one of fellow researchers made the joke "Wouldn't it be funny if they appeared right next us now?". As if on cue a mother and calf Fin Whale surfaced either side of our small boat, the sound as they breached the surface was enough to really scare us all! Then they stayed with the boat very calmly for a while, to be this close to such a behemoth was... exhilarating.

The Fin Whales were so close and so huge that getting a full shot of them was impossible. But here is a headshot of this giant whale!

Okay! Phew! There is my round up of the cetaceans we found in our bays in Iceland! That was longer than I thought it would be. So there is one last thing I want to talk about in this epilogue, so part 4 is coming up...

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Though not a cetacean we did see a lot of Basking Sharks this summer, unfortunately I never got a picture apart from a blurry one from my phone.

Iceland: Epilogue Part 2

Seeing the sights and sounds

In my 58 weeks in Iceland I tried to see as much of the country as was available to me, a disadvantage was that I do not possess a drivers license and so my independent travelling based around the availability of friends also travelling. Don't get me wrong this was a great way to see much of the country but of course not a regular opportunity. But a huge advantage to me was that as part of the tourist industry I was able to claim free travel with multiple companies! This meant I would have to travel fully as a tourist in large groups, but I must saved thousands of pounds (due to the extraordinary fees they charge) by going with these companies.

Ah Gullfoss (The Golden Waterfall), I managed to visit you in every single season of the year! But you looked at your best when covered in ice and snow. This was taken in November, I also visited in January and you were even prettier then! This was part of the Golden Circle tour mentioned in the first part, I ended up seeing the circle four times!

And of course part of the Golden Circle tour is the mighty geysir Strókkur! These pictures were taken on my final visit to the geysir. The first is a rather beautiful show of the eruption from distance. You can see how huge the eruption can be when compared to the tiny people around its base. And the second is the reason I visited 4 times! I final got my alien egg photo! Just as Strókkur erupts there is a brief moment when the water surface rises and the eruption builds underneath. It is a difficult but gorgeous shot to take.

Now this was my favourite destination in Iceland. If you know me well then you probably know I have an unhealthy fascination with ice. Well this is Jökulsárlon. The glacial lagoon, this lies at the base of the largest glacier in Europe, Vatnajökull, and is an area where icebergs break off this glacier then float out to sea.

You can get a boat ride through this lagoon so you can get up close with the icebergs, which was just sensational. I was so happy here!

There is also a surprise waiting at the lagoon, a nesting Arctic Tern colony. This is situated by the path, unfortunately if you go near a Tern nest they will attack with force. And because I was already in a giddy mood I decided to stand in the middle of the colony and get attacked in order to get terrifying pictures such as this! The good news is that I know they don't really hurt that much now.

My final big journey came in Vestmannaeyar, The Westman Islands.

The main island of the group is Heimaey (Home Island) and is dominated by the two volcanoes on the tiny island. The second, and one pictured, is very new as it was only created in 1973 when the first had a huge eruption. This devastated the island and created a huge new vent which became this volcano. A reminder to the the people that destruction is never far, but also that they have survived even the hardest times.

Now this is just a picture to further highlight my back luck with birds. I attempted to scale the new volcano but could not get past the base as this Oystercatcher began to attack my head. At first this was amusing as I could get great pictures (RED EYE OF DOOM!) and I had never heard of this behaviour from this bird before. But I soon backed off as this is a big bird with a very big beak, and I didn't fancy being impaled.

Vestmannaeyar is home to around 1.2 million Atlantic Puffins every summer. Climbing up a puffin nesting cliff I was able to get extremely close to many puffins and snap what are some of my best pictures I've ever taken. I got hundreds of puffin pictures in my time here but this one is just gorgeous.

And here is me at a few sights doing a pose. The first is a basalt column formation along the south coast much like the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. The second is me with my favourite Icelandic waterfall, Seljalandsfoss. This is my favourite because, as you can see, you can walk behind it! It is beyond beautiful there, especially as on the day I went we had complete sunshine!

So this was part 2! So far there has a conspicuous absence of whales, but that is because they deserve their own section. Part 3 coming up in 3.....2.....1.......

Thanks for reading!

Iceland: Epilogue Part 1

My last post was actually quite a while ago, unfortunately there was an incident with my shoulder and a dislocation. So I had a period off work and of course couldn't lift my camera for a while!

And well that encompassed almost the entirety of my time left in Iceland! As I write this I am back in the UK, it has been 4 days since I left the land of giants and elves. And so it's time for my official goodbye and give a summary of my adventure.

Beginnings

So it was on the 24th July 2013 when I made my arrival Iceland where I would spend a week in Reykjavík. 

Here I am!

While I was there I would see the Golden Circle for the first time, the combination of the water Gullfoss, geysir Strókkur (pictured above) and national park Þingvellir. And I would even go whale watching with Elding, who would later become my employers though I didn't know this at the time! This was just a week though as I would then part ways with my family as a moved north to....

Húsavík

Now anyone who has spent over 6 minutes talking to me will have heard this town mentioned, this is because undoubtedly this town stole my heart.

A view of the town from the mountain behind the town.

Just look how gorgeous Húsavík is! Picturesque...

And I can't talk about Húsavík without mentioning the greatest night I have ever had, nothing else comes close to perfection but this was pretty much that...

So imagine a group of very close friends, a wooden hot tub located on the edge of a cliff overlooking Skjálfandi Bay and a good supply of beer. Put those three together and you have a good night, add a fantastic northern lights display over the bay. At that point life reaches a peak.

Húsavík was two unforgettable months of my life. Of course there was more to it than what I've mentioned here but I shall get to those things later. For now my next destination and final permanent one would be...

Reykjavík

And so on October 1st I became a city boy! Moving to the capital (and only) city of Iceland. For the next two months I would be a researcher for Elding and actually spend the next 6 months living on a boat in Reykjavík harbour.

Here we have Reykjavík city seen from the water, bathed in snow! Safe to say that at far as capital cities go, this is incredibly scenic.

And here was my home for a while! Again bathed in snow, the winter here was.... interesting. And by interesting I mean REALLY cold. But now I have a fantastic tolerance for the cold so I guess it was worth it.

And so these were the places I would call home, in the city I did also rent an apartment for a while. So from October until December I was a researcher with Elding acting on a voluntary basis, but in January Elding made the decision to hire me as a tour guide! Seeing as I can only speak one language (in northern English too!) and had never had any experience in that field before this was certainly a brave decision but one that would serve to change my Icelandic journey massively!

Stages of Jack from left to right: Researcher for North Sailing in Húsavík; Researcher for Elding in Reykjavík; Guide for Elding in Reykjavík

Of course this meant my original plan to stay in Iceland until around February was out the window and of course I ended up leaving in September! This extra time through the summer meant I could actually do some travelling around the country which I will cover in part 2 of my epilogue! Dun dun duuuuuun!

Thanks for reading!

My Icelandiversary! Here's to 6 more weeks.

I arrived in Iceland on July 24th 2013, it started with a week in Reykjavík city on holiday. Then August 1st I arrived in Húsavík where the next two months would serve to be some of the most influential and memorable of my life. I can never thank North Sailing enough for the time we enjoyed up north. My love affair with Húsavík continues to this day and I still dream of returning as soon as I can. This was where I experienced my first of many species of cetacean and the northern lights. I will always remember the night when we all decided to go up to the local hot tub with a bunch of beers. As we soaked and drank the northern lights proceeded to burst over Skjálfandi bay. At that point it was clear life wouldn't get much better.
Then on October 1st I moved down to Reykjavík to continue my volunteer work for Elding, this continued through to December. And then in January Elding hired me as a guide for them. And if I have to thank anyone for everything I've achieved here it would have to be Elding.
Trying to list everything that has happened here would simply undersell it. All I can really do is enjoy the last 6 weeks of my time here in Iceland.

Leaving Iceland, well that'll be hard. But I guess its best to cross that bridge when it arrives.

But for now I'll say to my Húsavík girls; Ailie, Naomi, Charla, Tania, Dunja thank you for the G&Ts and more laughs than I would have thought possible.
And to Elding crew; Megan and Freydís who had the fantastic idea to hire me.
Soffia for sharing the duty of being a novice guide in the winter though after you dropped the mic into the sea the new one is pretty unreliable... grrr!
Linda, Dominik and Carine for being awesome housemates and great guides.
To my fellow volunteers during my research phase in Reykjavík; Loes you were a proper tea buddy who taught me some Dutch that has proved invaluable in impressing my favourite tourists, the Dutch! Megan B, you were the most adventurous person to ever grace this company and just so you know you'll find me in Vancouver Island as soon as I can trying to hug to Orca there!

Skál Ísland. Takk fyrir allt!

Here's to 6 more weeks.

July 18-22

There's three days to cover this time. First I'll cover the latest wildlife trend that's been occurring in the bay, it started last week while I was back in the UK and has carried on through the present. We've had numerous phases of behaviour from animals that come and go, March-April was basically Humpback season, May was full of excellent Minkes that were feeding and being interactive, June and half of July have been pretty poor to be honest. It's all been very 6/10.
But now it's much better! We've had a real influx of White-Beaked Dolphins in the bay, and many of them have been very curious and playful with the boat.

You can see how close they get, plus I love it when you see them under the surface just as they take a breath.

This is great for perspective, mere metres from the boat!

They often use the energy and motion created by the movement of the boat to leap and surf around us. It's a fantastic sign that we are having a mutually beneficial interaction.

During a midnight sun tour we had a really beautiful sunset, here it illuminates the volcanic glacier Snæfellsjökull (Sny-fells-yeu-kukl) and the cruise ship beside it serves to frame it.
Interestingly when this cruise ship set off a passenger had a heart attack and the rescue teams from Reykjavík flew out to assist, it was an interesting sight.

The best thing about sunsets is how the light changes constantly, you should always watch the sky just to see the light change.

Sunsets always looks great out of focus, I had some fun with the manual focus for this one.

This is from a different day to the rest of the dolphins but you can see how this dolphin has a very serious wound. This is 99% a bite wound, and how red it is shows how it must be fresh. In Ólafsvík recently there was a sighting of Orca attacking dolphins, this could be one of the survivors. Well done fella!

And we should always remember the whales! Here's quite a nice shot of a Minke Whale, you can see the head of this whale as it breached the surface. Speaking of that there was a tour recently where we had the pleasure of seeing a Minke Whale breach 5 times!!! It was around 1km away but it was distinctly a minke throwing its body out of the water, because this is me though I couldn't get a picture. I was a little busy yelling and screaming, I've developed a bit of a company reputation for reacting loudly to big situations. That usually means I get distracted and don't use my camera.

Thanks for reading!

There's always more to discover in Iceland

Last week I took another trip, though this one was a 2 day trip to Vestmannæyar (The Westman Islands) to have an explore of what is reputed to be a beautiful Archipelago. I only visited the main (and only inhabited) island named Heimaey.
Even on the ferry trip over to the island the adventure began, I spotted a Minke Whale in the distance. I pointed this out to nearby passengers and ended up guiding the ferry trip, once a guide a guide!
The island itself is incredible, there are two volcanoes of which one is just 40 years old after the first had a huge eruption which created a second huge crater. It is also the largest Atlantic Puffin colony in Iceland with around 1.2 million breeding puffins coming to the island every summer.
So if you want to be literally surrounded by puffins this is the place to be! It is also a photographers paradise as you will see now!

The volcano hovers above the town, both intimidating and beautiful.

The harbour area is surrounded by mountains and lava fields.

As I walked through the new lava fields there was a pair of Golden Plovers that put on a bit of a show. Here is the male.

You can see how new these lava fields are, still so bright red!

The female Golden Plover posing in a small field.

Have you ever been attacked by an Oystercatcher? Because this was a very angry one that was pretty terrifying.

Though it did give me some great picture opportunities

Yay for more Icelandic Horses!

The highlight was of course the many many puffins that were on the island!

My favourite picture that I took, this one goes into my hall of highlights!

This particular puffin was excellent, I got extremely close to this one without it caring about my presence.

That moment when you think you recognise someone but aren't sure, I'll just have a stealthy look...

I'm actually back in the UK right now but I'll be back in Iceland on the 17th, then just 6-7 more weeks left....

Thanks for reading!