October continues to be beautiful and humpback whales keep showing up on our tours. Yesterday a total of five individuals was spotted. They were all swimming nearby each other and for some time, two were even seen swimming side by side.
After a stormy day yesterday, the mountains of Skjálfandi Bay surprised us in their winter-dress this morning. Fresh snow is covering the peaks and made the place look much more October-like. Along that, three humpback whales were spotted on our tours and it seemed like the storm has brought some new food to the bay as the whales were seen actively feeding in the afternoon.
As weeks pass by, days are getting shorter and shorter. Joining our late afternoon departure now allows one to watch the sunset whilst being on the way back to shore.
Even though the weather has had a few "ups and downs" recently, September over all surprised us with some days of perfect summer weather. Probably some of our whales were thinking similar and decided to calmly travel and rest on the surface.
The past few days have brought Húsavík beautiful summer-like weather, amazing whales, and again our friends on the Ocean Diamond cruiseship. All 5 of our RIBs took an incredible early-morning tour with Ocean Diamond passengers, as well as a film crew filming for British television.
Humpback whales are known to be solidarity animals and especially here in their feeding grounds tend to stay for themselves. Therefore it is rather special seeing several of them together, swimming and surfacing side by side.
September has arrived and the weather keeps changing a lot from sunshine to rain and back to a blue sky. However, whale-wise the month isn't disappointing at all as the humpback whales are still frequenting the bay! Also yesterday and today whales were showing themselves from their best side, making it totally worth it to brave the rainy weather.
Since Skjálfandi Bay is so well known for its big whales, such as the humpback whale and even the blue whale in the spring, sometimes the smallest of the cetaceans here can be over looked. These are the harbour porpoises.
Kory Barri (California, US) and his friends went out with us on a "GG2 Big Whale Safari and Puffins" earlier this season. Recently he published an article in the "Russian Time Magazine" about his travel around Iceland, including his adventure of meeting a blue whale, humpbacks and dolphins whilst out in Skjálfandi Bay on one of our RIB speed boats: "Before our search for the watery beasts began the speedboat took a pit stop at the famous Puffin Island, which was currently inhabited by thousands of these goofy little birds.
Even after seeing the whales hundreds of time, all of our staff would agree that it is still an amazing and exciting experience, but seeing the whales through the eyes of our passengers and hearing their stories adds another level of enthusiasm to working at Gentle Giants.
