WHALES CELEBRATING ICELANDIC FOOTBALL TEAM WITH US
Personally, I am not a big football fan. However, my colleague is and the other day, when Iceland competed with England, he wanted to watch the match so badly that he asked me to take his trip on one of our RIBs. Both, the trip and the match started at 7pm (Icelandic time) and whilst we were still heading for Puffin Island, our football enthusiasts back in Húsavík contacted us. The score was 1:1 – “Wow – already?! It’s going to be an interesting match,” I said.
As time was passing, we left Puffin Island and went to search for some whales. Just a short bit later we were approaching the first humpback whale, which was nicely lifting its tail high out of the water and surfacing quite often. After a little time we left it behind in search for others. Already from a distance we spotted some huge splashes - a jumping humpback! It took just a little time to get there and short after we were watching the whale from up close hoping that it was going to repeat its acrobatic tricks - and so it did! “Wooow - here we go!” Probably the best example to show our passengers how acrobatic humpback whales can be. We saw it a couple more times before also leaving this whale behind to try finding something else. “Dolphins!” It’s always fun to see these animals as they are usually very playful and as they always stay in groups they were all around us just a few minutes later.
After watching them for a bit, I turned my head to see what was happening on the other side of the boat and in the same moment a huge humpback whale breached all out of the water. As it landed on the surface huge splashes appeared. Luckily most of our passengers saw it as well! What a great surprise. As the humpback repeated its jump, probably everybody on-board forgot about the dolphins. Watching a majestic humpback jumping is something memorable even for us crew members and the fact that it is not even known for sure why a 30 tons heavy animal would do something like that, makes it even more exciting.
However, the captain told me that we were leaving as there were more humpbacks jumping in a different area. I could not believe what was going on! Whilst heading for the other whales, we came across some smaller splashes. Once closer to that place, a minke whale lifted its body out of the water! I never seen this before and wasn’t even aware minkes here would do something like that. Then, after a few more minutes we arrived to an area where some other boats were watching several humpbacks and just short after another humpback breached out of the water! “What’s going on today,” I asked the captain with a big smile on my face. The sea was a little choppy, but not really bad. However, one theory explains the jumping as a try of the whales to breathe easier in rough seas.
Just after the whale’s jump the captain told me that the football match was over and that Iceland had won!! Looking back on the many breaches we saw, I said: “They must be celebrating as well!"
But also our trip was about to finish. Just before leaving we spotted another jumping humpback in a little distance. As we were on the speed boat we managed to get closer (of course keeping a safe distance as this was a wild animal and unpredictable in their behaviours) and got a better look on it! Once there, it jumped again! Unbelievable!
“They really must be celebrating!” Never before I saw something like this! I was so so happy, especially as I am usually a bit unlucky and missing out their jumps a lot whilst watching somewhere completely else in search for more animals!
That day we managed to see four different humpbacks jumping out of the water as well as a minke! In addition to that we saw dolphins and more humpbacks which were surfacing in several areas in the bay! This tour immediately became the best trip I have experienced on our speed boats! Everybody on-board was so happy and with a big smile on the face when we left these beautiful animals behind.
It’s all about being lucky if one gets to see a jump or not. However, that day I truly supported another theory which says that they might also jump for joy or happiness – and maybe it was really the reason, but that will remain a mystery forever.
Even though the sea conditions today aren’t the best and some of our tours had to be cancelled, we still can look forward to tonight, when the Icelandic team has its next match in which they compete with France. Of course everyone in our team is crossing fingers for Iceland and who knows, maybe we and the whales out in the bay are going to celebrate again!
PHOTO: Ricardo Fernandes