Song of the Whale Diary-31st July - 3rd August

31st July 2006
Written by Claire
With the last of the new crew arriving today, we busy ourselves with preparations to leave for the next survey leg – shopping for food, cleaning and checking equipment. There have been some rather extensive changes of staff – Olly, Magnus, Doug and Srishti have now gone, to be replaced by Claire and Paul (see Meet the Team), Andreas Dinkelmeyer from the IFAW Germany office, Anke – a journalist from Geo magazine, Tobba - one of the Icelandic interns from 2004 who has come back to join us, Marjolaine who also volunteered with us in the Caribbean, and Vicki a volunteer from the Coastal Marine Resources Centre (CMRC) at the University of Cork, Ireland. With Anna, Richard and Clo who remain on board, this takes us up to 10 people. In the evening when the final three arrive, we leave Isafjordur and head out to anchor off  Hesteyrafjordur so that we can be ready to leave tomorrow.

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1st August 2006
Written by Anna
Hesteryri is one of two tiny settlements on the Hornstrandir peninsula – this is a remote, inaccessible, claw shaped peninsula with rugged cliffs, soaring mountains and wildflower meadows. Both Hesteryri and Adalvik are now almost completely deserted, with just a few holiday residents visiting the renovated cottages in summer. Hesteyri was founded in the late 1800’s around a Norwegian whaling station, the remains of which we visited this morning. The Norwegians, world experts in whaling, founded whaling stations around the world, including in the eastern Caribbean in the late 1800 and early 1900’s. However, when whale stocks declined, the station at Hesteyri was apparently commandeered as a herring processing works, but when herring also became scarce, the factory closed in 1940. The last families abandoned the village in 1952. Now all that remains of the whaling factory is the brick and concrete structures (the roofs have largely collapsed), the huge chimney, steam generators, winch mechanisms, the bones of the landing stages, and rusting metal tanks and tri pots. It is strange to try and imagine how noisy, smelly and busy the place used to be in the days when huge numbers of whales met a gory end here; now it is a quiet, slightly eerie place. Later, we up-anchor and set off to try and find some live whales; however, the weather is not promising as we head out towards the open sea, so we end up anchoring near Adalvik for the night, and leave the sheltered bay at 4 am on Wednesday morning.

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2nd August 2006
Written by Tobba
Once we get out from Adalvik the weather soon deteriorates. After only four hours we therefore sail into the next bay east from Adalvik - Hornvik, and anchor there at 8 am, walled in by the majestic Hornbjarg cliff on the east side of the bay. The day is spent at anchor in the sun-bathed Hornvik, with a dense bank of fog hanging still outside the bay’s entrance. The two Irish team members outdo the Icelandic one in her efforts of doing a morning swim on the edge of the Arctic circle, desperately trying to defend the national pride – without any luck – as the Irish manage to swim around the whole vessel! No wonder they say the Irish actually did get here first! The rest of the team go ashore, hiking up the steep westside of Hornbjarg cliff, in the company of fulmars, guillemots, kittiwakes, puffins – and an Arctic fox! The evening is spent quietly on deck in the long shadows of the surrounding mountains and the plan is to leave the bay in the early hours of Thursday morning.

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3rd August 2006
Written by Paul
Our hopes are raised as the fog clears a little at about 4 in the morning, but it is swiftly replaced by a new fog bank coming in from the south, which begins to fill the bay with low cloud. We wait a few hours in case the situation improves and eventually head out of Hornvik in poor visibility. We are escorted out into open sea by four white beaked dolphins, which bow ride in front of Song of the Whale. If the dolphins had not come right up to the boat we would not have seen them in the fog. A few hours after leaving Hornvik the fog clears, and we find ourselves with clear visibility, calm seas, and light winds; excellent conditions for spotting whales. Our persistence is rewarded by a very acrobatic group of white-beaked dolphins which we see around 1700. There are around 20 in the group and they are breaching with great enthusiasm