In the early afternoon all of us got surprised by a gentle giant visiting Skjálfandi Bay. Though unusual at this time of the year, a blue whale paid our boats a visit. Both, RIB and oak boats were able to admire the largest animal that has ever lived on earth.
After we had to cancel all our departures due to bad sea conditions yesterday (08.07.16) we could sail as scheduled today. As on many days throughout the last weeks we added several extra departures on our RIB speed boats for the "GG2 Big Whale Safari and Puffins".
Early this morning our crew met up for a rescue drill on-board our oak boat Sylvía. Whilst the town was still asleep all of us headed out to the outer harbour to train rescue procedures as “Man over board”.
This morning – after a couple of stormy days – the weather surprised us once again, positively this time! Sunshine, blue sky and a calm sea were awaiting us, boats filled up quickly and several RIB speed boat extra departures were added to give everyone the chance to experience Skjálfandi-Bay at its best.
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.
”The other day I started work early in the morning as I was going to sail on the oak boat “Faldur” on the day’s first departure. The weather was very nice and promising: there was no wind and the sea very calm.
In the past days, we haven't needed to do much searching to find the whales and dolphins in the bay. It seems that everywhere you look, after only sailing for a short time, you encounter another humpback whale.
Yesterday our new RIB speed boat “Amma Helga” arrived to the harbour of Húsavík. “Amma Helga” is the 4th RIB speed boat to join the fleet of Gentle Giants. 'She' was accompanied by our other three RIBs "Amma Kibba", "Amma Sigga" and "Amma Sigga II" on 'her' way into the harbour.
The other day, on our beautiful old fishing boat named « Faldur », we first came across a very active group of white-beaked dolphins. Even though they were swimming away from us in the distance, we could see them jumping multiple times which kicked off the afternoon just right! One blow, two blows, three blows.
Already a few days ago two blue whales were spotted near the Cheek Mountains on the other side of the bay - in a similar area as we could watch the humpbacks feeding intensely for the past few weeks.Then, this morning a mother blue whale and her calf, which had been spotted yesterday far north, swam all the way in and boats reached them within minutes after having left Húsavík harbour.
