Not for nothing Húsavík is called the whale watching capital of Europe: within the past days the number of whales in the bay has increased incredibly! Humpback whales seem to be everywhere! As one looks around their flukes appear in every direction and the horizon is covered by a cloud of blows.
Already yesterday some of our boats came across a real unusual sight: northern bottlenose whales had made their way into Skjálfandi Bay! Much to our surprise, the pod of whales was seen again on some of today’s departures! Northern bottlenose whales are part of the beaked-whales family.
In the beginning of May we started to spot increasing numbers of whales around Skjalfandi Bay. Every day, more and more were coming to feed in the cold Icelandic water. The first rule when you visit Iceland is that you must be ready for every type of weather, as you can experience every season - autumn, winter, spring and summer - all in one day.
Since this morning a well-known whale can be seen from our boats: the blue-fin-hybrid arrived to Skjálfandi Bay! Thanks to the hybrid’s dorsal fin it can be easily recognised as the same individual whenever it shows up here in the North.
By the end of May, several new staff members arrived to work as part of the team of Gentle Giants. Among our new guides is Freyja Petursson who travelled all the way from New Zealand to join our team here in Húsavík.
About a week ago Óli (Ólafur Ármann Sigurðsson) started working as a captain on our RIB speed boats and is since then going out for our “GG2 Big Whale Safari and Puffins”-tours. Before being allowed to sail into the bay on his own, he underwent a training, which was carried out by our head captain Sverrir Yngvi Karlsson.
Before Trina started to work as a guide for Gentle Giants last summer, she studied marine biology at the University of Southampton. In her final thesis for the master degree, Trina happened to write about the bird, which Iceland is most-known for: the puffin! However, there is a lot more to know about these cute and charming little birds that visit our bay for a few months each summer.
This past week was the annual “studying marine mammals in the wild” course run through the University of Iceland. There have been students joining us at Gentle Giants on many tours to learn and take data on photo identification, whale tracking, acoustics, and whale behaviour.
When you decide to move for the first time to Iceland in order to work as a whale-watching guide, it is something vocational. You know that it will be a tough life: your summer will be colder than you are used to; working on board in bad weather conditions tests your courage; and you are far away from everything you know.
Every year by the end of May a well-known excitement is spreading over the bay and harbour area of Húsavík. Any day now the first migrating blue whale might reach the waters of Skjálfandi Bay, likely staying for a short stop-over to feast on the plankton and krill which the bay has to offer – after all a blue needs about 5 tons of food a day whilst visiting its feeding grounds.
