Mountains of delight

Well today I set myself the task of getting a good photograph of the humpback whales with the still snowy mountains setting the background. This was accomplished! I am very pleased with some of shots.

The mountains even without whales looked incredible!

It was definitely one of the most scenic tours I've been on, some northern lights/sunset and it would have been complete!

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Back on the boats!

Today was the holy day where the weather returned to a normal state and the sea became less than fatal.

And the mountains across the bay have been powdered with a layer of snow that looks incredible!

You can imagine how it looks when these gorgeous beasts loom over you with a whale diving in the foreground...

All three pictures are of the whale with the lovely name 'Mong'. On this tour we also saw 'Little Ajax' and 'Snow White'. There were others but they were at an unrecognisable distance.

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The waiting game

It's been four days since we got to go on the boats. We've had very strong winds, nearly constant rain and yesterday quite a bit of snow. But today the weather has gotten much better and there is even a chance a boat will be going out later today, this is very exciting news. 

I took a picture of the mountain behind Húsavík (with my phone, thus the quality) so you can see how winter is well and truly on it's way here!

Also after the last boat trip I realised that I did not inform you of something interesting that happened! We saw two humpback whales close up and both of them were happy to perform some tail acrobatics, both were fluke slapping the water and one was lob-tailing (lifting the fluke into the air and leaving it there like a flagpole). I got an excellent shot of the lob-tailing, but not the slapping unfortunately.

The keenest of readers (or researchers) will recognise this fluke as the fluke of snow white, thanks snowy!

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I don't know whether the weather will be clement

Brace yourself. I'm about to show you the weather forecast.

Yeah we won't be going on the boat for a while. Though the prospect of 80km/h wind and 8m of swell is enticing in a roller coaster/vomit educing kind of way.

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It's a whale-a-thon!

Over the last week or two there has been an incredible increase in the amount of whales in the bay, and today was the pinnacle of that peak (so far). I am unsure of the exact number of individual whales we saw today but it is around 8-10, and they were all concentrated in a very small area. Plus the first minke whale sighted in weeks and weeks! It was an insane trip, there was barely a minute that went by without another whale being sighted somewhere nearby. We were constantly on the move but we barely moved at all!

The weather is due to seriously deteriorate tomorrow and possibly over the next few days, so the chances of the boats going out are not looking the best.

New snow all over Skalfandi Bay! We could be getting snow in town over the weekend.

This cormorant loved sitting in the harbour.

And was there for a long time.

This is the huge fluke of Hector.

This whale (named Hector) is bloody huge! Definitely the biggest humpback I've seen, and his blow is just as impressive. Even from under water it makes a huge splash.

The humpback with the patchy dorsal fin is Hector again

Minke! We've missed your elusive presence!

This whale (we just named this second) is called Little Ajax.

This whale is called Messy.

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Three's a photogenic crowd

This'll be a very short post as there's not a big story to tell.

Lately there has been a trio of humpback whales that like to hang out together, well I finally got a picture with all three in the shot! They rarely all surface at the same time. It is cool to see and hear them communicate, not via any singing as you'd expect, they would fluke slap and trumpet at the surface if they were up alone. I don't know if this kind of strong friendship bond has been documented in humpbacks but here it some serious proof it exists.

What was also entertaining is that the dolphins took great pleasure in harassing the whales, if the dolphins were bored of playing with our boat they would happily go swim all around the whales and even jump over them. The whales hate this and make it known.

This different species interaction is always so fascinating to watch!

Triple humpback!

I also got some amazing shots of this juvenile kittiwake that was flying just inches away from my head at times!

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A stunning aurora, plus friends.

Two nights ago at around 11:30pm I was in bed, all ready to sleep, when suddenly Ailie burst in to proclaim "NORTHERN LIGHTS! OUTSIDE! NOW!". I burst out of bed, quickly threw on some clothes and ran outside. Wow.

There were huge rippling green and purple ribbons in the sky, they were so intense! All 7 of us jumped into a 2 seater van and picked up our cameras then drove up the hill. By this time the lights had faded a little, but I could still get some amazing pictures!

An awesome group photo with the lights in the background. (Credit to Ailie Suzuki for the pic)