Song of the Whale Diary-15th August - 23rd August

Tuesday 15th August 2006
Today new crew arrived at Reykjavik for the crossing from Iceland to the United Kingdom. It’s quite a short trip since we’re only going to Liverpool on the UK's west coast. In Liverpool we have some events planned with the UK IFAW office. It’s aslo the home base for the SOTW Education and Communications officer, our very own Bridget Jones.

There is quite a bit of preparing to do for the trip. The day is spent cleaning, refuelling and shopping for food. Iceland’s supermarkets are very expensive but they make up for that by having much appreciated Scandinavian delicacies such as “Surmjolk” (sour milk) a bit like yogurt and perfect with cereal in the morning. In the evening Siggy, the Icelandic intern from earlier in the summer, comes down to the boat to say goodbye. Now we’re just waiting for one more of our crew to arrive from England. His flight has been quite delayed, likely because of the extensive security checks after the revelations of a possible terrorist plan against aircrafts in UK.

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Wednesday 16th August 2006
Hugh, the last member of the six person crew sailing Song of the Whale to the UK, arrived in the very early hours of the morning after a much delayed trip. The rest of the team was asleep in bed. It’s 8am and everyone is awake, ensuring that the boat is prepared for our departure from Reykjavik. The new crew members are given a tour of Song of the Whale’s safety equipment by Paul, who shows us how to attach our life vests, release the inflatable Zodiac life boats and make a mayday call, amongst other things. The day is sunny. The water is only a little choppy so we are able to set off without any difficulty before midday.

Immediately we set to feeding two hydrophones into the water. These acoustic recorders will pick up both high and low frequency whale and dolphin calls throughout our journey, as well as recording any other ocean noise we encounter. We’ve only just left Reykjavik harbour and already Claire has spotted the dorsal fin of a minke whale. We watch it rise a few more times for air as the ship makes it way out to sea. In the distance there is a peculiar pillar that appears to rise vertically from the sea. It’s a block of rock that looks striking in the increasingly foggy light. Puffins flap frenetically alongside the ship, while gannets and terns swoop gracefully through the air. After motoring for a short distance we winch up the sails, only to find that the wind is not enough to maintain our speed at the desired 7 knots. We leave the main sail up for stability while the motor is switched back on.The temperature is dropping, the sky has become overcast and Iceland disappears into the distance. Our hopes are high that the weather will be clear and tomorrow we will have even more sightings.

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Thursday 17th August 2006
We begin to make good progress Southeast from Iceland, but unfortunately we are still using the motor because there is very little wind. The weather forecast before we left Reykjavik was very promising, predicting following winds, but these have failed to materialise. So we motor across calm seas towards Scotland, and everyone settles into the watch routine and daily jobs aboard SOTW. As the evening sky darkens the Northern Lights appear, filling the sky behind us with swirling green light. It makes for a very impressive display, and a very beautiful end to what would otherwise have been an uneventful day.

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Friday 18th August 2006
Written by Hugh
The wind situation has not changed and the following winds still haven’t arrived. The sea, although a bit swelly at times, has been pleasant and rather kind to us. Arriving on watch early today I was greeted by the news that I’d missed out on pilot whales quite close to SOTW.  My contribution so far to ‘spotting’ has consisted of two fishing marker floats aimlessly making their way on Mother Nature’s oceans – destination unknown. A few attempts at sailing are made during the course of the day with varying success, but the engine is doing all the hard work on this leg. Sperm whales are regularly picked up by the hydrophone, sometimes three at a time, but no sightings result. We are now over halfway to the UK and the air temperature is increasing gradually as each watch passes.

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Saturday 19th August 2006
After a very dark night with no moon or stars, the dawn comes early and with it the wind that we have had overnight disappears entirely. Ee have no choice but to put the engine back on. We are starting to see more ship traffic now – a couple of tankers were spotted during the course of the night and there are a few on the horizon this morning. Paul gets our only sighting of the day – a blow about 500m from the boat. Unfortunately no one sees a fin and it only appears once, so we are unable to tell exactly what it is. The sperm whales have become less frequent on the hydrophone as we cross over the continental shelf edge and get nearer to Scotland. Hopefully these detections will be replaced by those of species which are more commonly found in more coastal waters, such as the harbour porpoise.

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Sunday 20th August 2006
Written by Viktoria
We entered Scottish waters early in the morning and at about 1am there were some dolphins around us in an otherwise eventless night. There are supposed to be basking sharks in the area and we are hoping to see porpoise, dolphins and maybe even killer whales. Unfortunately the day passes with very little to report. Claire spent a whole seven hours on the A-frame without spotting a single basking shark. I am happy that the landscape is rather dramatic and entertaining. We anchored in Ardarlarach Bay and went through the rules of the Anchor watch. It is the first time I am left alone on a watch and it was quite an exciting experience to be on your own while the rest of the crew is sleeping. It was a really dark and rainy night and as we had watched the ghost story “The Others” on DVD in the evening my imagination was kind of running.. Well, we managed to stay on spot and nothing supernatural is to be reported.

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Tuesday 23rd August 2006
After a smooth trip through the Sound of Mull yesterday, we head down past the Isle of Man and on towards Liverpool. We are able to lock in to the Albert Dock around midday. After a flurry of cleaning to get the boat ready for the open days which will ensue, people take the opportunity to catch up on some sleep. IFAW and the SOTW team would like to say a big thank you to everyone who made our Iceland trip possible. Our next research project is to study sperm whales in the eastern Mediterranean. Look out for our diaries in the spring of next year.