Monday, 7 May 2018

Great day on the water today! Two trips this morning and two trips this afternoon. This morning we encountered our first whale less than 10km from the port of Akureyri. Compared to previous days when the whales were as far north as the island of Hrísey. We were soon looking from left to right because we had one humpback whale to the left of us and another to the right! They were mostly diving out of synch until they decided to converge and swap sides. This behaviour is a sign of active feeding and collaboration between individuals. Fantastic example of cooperation! One of them we have already spotted in the fjord: Cloud (identified in Oct 2017). The second humpback was unidentifiable since it did not show its fluke once. The afternoon trip saw the arrival of a third humpback whale: a humpback with a white fluke and many black scratches that we have not yet identified here in Akureyri. On the short way back to port we still managed to see some porpoises and Cloud popped out again only meters away from port!

Text by Liza Roger and photos by Anna Gunnarsdottir.