A video tribute to Skjálfandi Bay

I realise it's a little late to be posting about Húsavík again but I finally uploaded a video I made a while ago to YouTube! It is my tribute to the fabulous bay and the even more amazing whales!

Thanks for watching!

(The last few days I have been attending the Arctic Circle conference in Reykjavik thus no boat activity, tomorrow it finishes and I shall provide a summary for you!)

Imagine Peace!

We spent an evening watching the lighting of the 'Imagine Peace' tower by Yoko Ono, a piece of art dedicated to John Lennon.

We took a boat over to Viðey, an island about 1km off the coast of Reykjavik, we arrived then queued for around 30 mins for food. I was 50kr short for the food but the lovely staff were understanding!

Then Yoko came and read us a poem then lit the lights on the tower, it looked awful pretty! Though the ceremony was so short there was no real message that got through. But hey! It was an aesthetic event.

Thanks for reading!

Imagine Peace folks!

Things tourists do: Typical Irish Family

As you can imagine I come into contact with a lot of tourists, and as a talkative person I quite enjoy chatting to tourists! You get all kinds of colourful people on holiday and I could recount many many tales of amusing events that I have been witness to, but right now I shall begin what I hope will be a regular segment of this blog.

Things tourists do: I was chatting to an Irish mother and daughter, they were asking the standard questions about what we saw then the daughter: "You don't sound Icelandic"
Me: "That's because I'm not Icelandic"
Daughter: "That makes sense, I'm as sharp as a crayon I am"
Mum: "Crayons aren't sharp"
Me: "A sharp crayon?"
Daughter: "Yeah a sharp crayon! So where are you from?"
Me: "England"
Daughter: "An Englishman eh? Mum I've found you an Englishman!"
Me: "Were you looking for an Englishman?"
Mum: "No"

They were mightily entertaining.

It's also been snowing here! Over night we got a nice blanket of it over the city and it made for a very picturesque scene.

Ain't that so pretty!

I'm trying out a focusing effect here, make the picture better?

Thanks for reading!

All about one picture

Over the last few days I've taken quite a few pictures and the plan would have been to give you the standard highlight reel that you would be accustomed to, but frankly I don't want to draw any attention from a picture I took today that I am very pleased with.

It's not even a cetacean, nor a mammal. It is a bird, and a common one at that.

That's right, just a common guillemot. But look at how close it is!  This. Never. Happens.

Look at the water droplets lingering on it's back! And you can see it's legs through the surface!

Mate. I am so happy with this.

Thanks for reading!

Dolphins are back!

The bay that I will be working in while I'm here is called Faxafloi Bay, and the predominant species in the bay are Minke Whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and White-Beaked Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris).

On a trip yesterday I got some rather cracking pictures of the dolphins, you'll be pleased to hear! And heeeeere they are:

 

 

 

 

As my pictures are being used for scientific studies and being shared by numerous agencies and people I have added to copyright just to highlight where credit is due ;)

 

Thanks for reading!

A new chapter begins...

So there we have it folks, I have left the delightful town of Húsavík and have moved to Reykjavik. The big city!!

But Húsavík did give me one last delightful and amazing gift before I left, another spectacular sunset!

Here I had the camera on an incorrect setting for this kind of thing, but the shot turned out to be very nice anyway!

As soon as I saw this I ran outside with my camera, unfortunately I had forgotten my shoes. It's safe to say the Spanish tourists I was standing with were a little confused and concerned at that!

So that was the end of that! I took my first research trip in Reykjavik this morning, there were three minke whales circling the boat which was very nice to see. But to be honest the thing I was most excited about was how many gannets there were, in my time in Húsavík I saw two gannets, today I saw five!

They look too big to fly!

Thanks for reading!

A last day to remember

So today is the final day of my adventure in Skalfandi Bay, tomorrow I move to Reykjavik and will be staying their for the remainder of my placement.
And the last day certainly did not disappoint, (the morning trip anyway), the whale Snow White is the last whale in the bay and put on a little show for us. How nice!
He was doing some incredible surface feeding extremely close to the boat, I have a picture of surface feeding from a while ago that you may remember but that was at a fair distance away. This was so much closer and so much more awesome.

Right away Snowy lunged up beside the boat, I wasn't quick enough to snap the immediate lunge but I did catch his head come crashing down!

Here he is rolling over in the water and you can actually get a peek at his underside.

Here's the highlight!

You can even see the whale pushing water out of its mouth to filter the water away from the food!

Thanks for reading!