On a boat..

My first 2 days have passed in a flurry and I do not even know where to begin..

Yesterday was my first day on the whale-watching boat and apparently I was a lucky charm, as we saw all four of the most present animals in Flaxafloi bay: first some white-beaked dolphins, then some harbour porpoises, and on the way back to the harbour we came across a minke whale and… a humpback whale!! So what a start! They said it is really rare to see all four species and I noticed as much on my second trip of the day: We saw one minke whale..once! That’s all! It surfaced right in front of the boat, but then it was gone and lost forever! On our last trip we went out really far and in the end were rewarded by 2, maybe even 3 minke whales that surfaced about 10-15 times!

Now maybe I should say that I do not actually see much of the minke whales! At least not yet! What I am currently doing is the data write-up, meaning when a minke whale surfaces I have to mark the latitude and longitude with the gps. I also have to write down the time it surfaced and I note the horizontal angle (which is used to calculate the distance of the whale). Next to me, Valeria (another volunteer in Fredrik’s project) is frantically taking pictures of the whale and using another device called the range-finder, while shouting ‘UP’ at me as soon as the whale surfaces, so that I can take all my measurements. So yes, maybe I should rephrase my experiences to: I know there is a minke whale next to the boat and sometimes I even see it for about a millisecond, before I hastily start pressing buttons and writing away. Next week however, I will start to take the pictures and use the range-finder so from then on I might even see something of the minkes.
However, not all is bad! The other 3 species I can watch, film and enjoy as much as I like! And that for free and 3 times a day!
So after around 10 hours of work (9 hours on the boat and 1 hour putting all the data on to the computer) I can tell you I was thoroughly shattered. When I finally went to bed it was one of those moments: your head touches the pillow and wham, you are in dreamland!

Today was not quite as exciting as we only did the morning tour. During midday the weather went from bad to worse and the wind picked up, so we decided it was not worth the effort to go out, as the chance of getting good data minimizes greatly with big waves and the equipment is not allowed to get wet. And this is why I am now sitting in the Captain’s office, writing this blog!

Cheers until I finally get to see the beauties of Reykjavik!