The nice pictures cometh!

 The dolphins were going genuinely crazy, throwing themselves around non-stop!

Though the trip out was incredible I will remember it for missing the sight of a humpback whale doing a full body breach (jump) out of the water. I was looking the other way. It is my mission to see this event! Soon perhaps...

Thanks for reading!

The nice weather cometh!

Yesterday the weather took a turn for the excellent, I wore both t-shirt and shorts and ended up soaked in sweat. Only afterwards I checked the weather forecast and saw that it hit a high of 15 degrees, I believe I have acclimatised!
In the morning we took a hike up the mountain behind Husavik, the weather and views were all perfect!
Then in the evening we took 2 tours out, we saw EVERYTHING. I'm talking the usual humpbacks, white-beaked dolphins and minke whales plus a large pod of harbour porpoises.

Pictures to follow, thanks for reading!

Pictures of the day!

The weather really cleared up today, we had natural sunlight! You'd think it was summer!

Anyway here's some of the best pictures I took today:

 I was pleased to finally get a head shot of a humpback :)

 And I got some cool shots of an arctic tern and a northern fulmar

And here's proof that blue sky can exist over Skjalfandi bay!

Grounded

The last two days the weather has been pretty miserable and the boats have not been going out. (Yet tourists still insist on buying tickets, can you not see the weather??)
So we are shore-bound and get very excited at any little bit of sunshine we see. I'm cataloguing a collection of individually identified blue whales at the minute, it's not the most entertaining work but I get to spend my time looking at pretty pictures of blue whales. So it's hard to complain really.

Hoping for weather like an Italian heatwave, thanks for reading!

Close encounters with the moist kind.

On my second boat trip out the humpback whales were considerably closer than the last trip, one particular humpback had dived and while we waited it eventually surfaced around a metre away form the boat. It made for an excellent sight but the whale was certainly very shocked at where it turned up, it dived pretty much immediately after it surfaced.
Think how in 'The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' when the blue whale materialises and is pretty startled by it's materialisation. It was a similar reaction.

Here's some pretty pictures anyway!

My picture taking skills seem to be improving by the day! Huzzah!

Thanks for reading!

First trip out.

So on my first trip out I saw a minke whale, a pod of white-beaked dolphins and 3-6 humpback whales. It was pretty good though the whales were constantly diving for long periods, they possibly were irritated with some of the boats.

 The above picture shows how whale watching should not be conducted. Approach a whale at a steady speed on a parallel angle. Ignoring this can cause the whale to be scared and dive to get away.

All of the pictures are of the humpback whales, 

Thanks for reading!

A new chapter!

So yesterday my time in Reykjavik ended and I took the cross-country trip to Husavik, so the holiday has ended and my work placement has now begun! From here on in I imagine there will be lots of pictures of cetaceans being cetaceans and some scenic ones depending on how often I get out.

Husavik looks to be a pleasant town with a lot of tourists and some fantastic views of the surrounding mountains, I'll be going out on my first trip later today. Stay tuned and I'll get you some pretty pictures!

Thanks for reading!