Song of the Whale Diary-24th - 27th July 2006

24th July 2006
25th July 2006
26th and 27th July 2006

24th July 2006
Written by Doug
Conditions this morning are no better than yesterday. Thick fog with visibility generally less than 100m, often a lot less. The chances of finding blue whales in this weather are incredibly small but the fog is patchy so we keep the watch up on the A-frame – what else is there to do? We wind our way West, more or less following the line of the Arctic Circle, in the hope of finding clearer conditions. But with absolutely no wind at all, our chances seem slim. The research we do on Song of the Whale often involves the collection of acoustic survey data – that is we sail or steam along some predetermined tack and then count the numbers of different cetaceans recorded by our automatic detection systems. Acoustic surveys have the great advantage that they can continue in weather conditions such as these. However, the work we are doing this summer relies on us first locating the animals visually and then collecting good visual data on how many animals there are, so the conditions on a day like this are not very helpful. Still, we are cheered by the occasional dolphin and harbour porpoise sighting close to the boat. Shortly after midnight, we anchor in ‘Hornvik’, a small fjord in the north west of Iceland.

25th July 2006
Written by Richard
Despite being in the ‘Land of the midnight sun’, there was nothing to be seen other than thick fog on our arrival in Hornvik last night. This was not unlike our last visit to this remote anchorage in the NW corner of Iceland. Those of us who were on board in 2004 when we dropped anchor here, were treated to the sight of the high cliffs slowly emerging out of the fog as it cleared in the early morning. After a quick circuit of the bay to investigate other potential anchorages for future reference, the fog lifted around us and we depart for sea at 10am. Our plan was to head NW out to the 200m contour and follow that in a westerly direction searching for blue whales. By this time the horizon to the north and west look fairly clear of fog. Three hours after putting to sea we start to detect the clicks of sperm whales on the main hydrophone array. As soon as we get close to the sperm whales (we can gauge this by the intensity of the clicks we hear) everyone springs into action to prepare for a few hours of photo-id. As in our previous Icelandic sperm whale encounters we were surprised how shallow the water is that whales are feeding in, less than 200m. Most of the other places we have worked we would not expect to encounter sperm whales until a depth of at least 500m. Having obtained good fluke shots, (individual) tail photographs of the small group of sperm whales, the call of “ice” came from the A- frame. A line of sea ice had been spotted seaward of us. The broken ice was in a line extending towards the horizon in a line running NE/SW and about 21 miles wide at the point closest to us. The ice was fairly well dispersed so we slowly entered the ice field to have a look around. Soon we met up with an Icelandic Coastguard ship which was also having a look around while charting the full extent of the ice field, assisted by a Coastguard aircraft which over flew us a couple of times. A little while later the Coastguard cutter’s tender visited us, they came over to give us their latest version of the ice map. Before leaving the ice field to continue our search for whales we found a small flat piece of ice about the same size of SOTW. We gently nosed up to the flow and dropped Magnus off with an array of cameras to film and photograph SOTW in a rather surreal setting; he looked quite odd wandering about on his personal ice island as we motored away. Once clear of the ice field we continued in a SW direction, occasionally encountering more sperm whales, with the ice a mile or so in the background.

26th and 27th July 2006
Today, we are still sailing generally southwest, still with a line of ice a couple of miles to seaward, encountering more sperm whales as we go. Later the wind picks up, making the sighting conditions a little more challenging. In the late afternoon, we come across a large, grey undulating mound in the water, which turns out to be a dead sperm whale. We slowly circle the whale, which is on its side, its huge pale jaw visible hanging open beneath the surface. It is a large individual with a very scarred head, probably about 10m long and with no obvious wounds or signs of what may have caused its demise – perhaps old age? We inform the Coastguard, as this is a potential hazard to shipping, and the Marine Research Institute. The weather continues to deteriorate, as we turn and begin to sail towards the craggy west coast. Vassili and Alexandre leave tomorrow afternoon while Doug, Magnus and Srishti leave the following morning. Once we are back on land we have lunch for the last time together and that evening, after Vassili and Alexandre have left, we treat ourselves to a viewing of the latest ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ film at the local cinema. We will spend the weekend in Isafjordur, catching up on data entry and other jobs around the boat as we wait for new crew members to join us for the next leg. If the weather is okay we will leave Isafjordur again on Monday.