Song of The Whale Diary-20th - 24th June 2006

20th June 2006
At last we arrived into Reykjavik‘s old harbour sometime around midday yesterday (Monday 19th).  With our engine not working, the harbour’s new tugboat/pilot boat crew came alongside and assisted us in, expertly parking us into our temporary berth.  Upon our arrival, an Icelandic engineer came aboard to check on the engine problem and soon had it up and running!

With an open day scheduled for the following day and a ‘press’ visit in the morning we had to have the boat presentable!  Work involved cleaning everything both inside and out and distributing IFAW leaflets and posters (describing Song of the Whale’s work in Iceland) to as many places as possible in Reykjavik.  Hopefully, between media coverage and poster and leaflet distribution, word of mouth will spread and we will have lots of visitors to our open day!

Back to Top

21st June 2006
The media events are a success, and one of the interns joining us on the next leg even comes down to the boat to tell us we are on the news.  One of the daily newspapers also runs a story on us and puts it on their website.  We spend the day showing people around the boat  (several people visit us after they have been whale watching – we are tied up alongside two whale watch operators) and rebuilding a hydrophone that was starting to show signs of damage.  We also meet with the British Ambassador to Iceland, who kindly comes to visit the boat and brings us cake!

These few days in Reykjavik have provided us with the opportunity to catch up with a few of our interns from 2004 and 2005 – Erla, Herdis and Bjorgvin.

Back to Top

22nd June 2006
We are making frantic preparations for our departure on our first research segment in Iceland this year.  There are final adjustments to be made with the research equipment.  We are aiming to collect acoustic recordings of blue whales.  The team constructed two low frequency recording buoys which we will deploy in the vicinity of blue whales when we find them.  We also have to complete a number of repairs after our eventful Atlantic crossing from the East coast of America.  Everyone is very busy but we look ready to leave Reykjavik early tomorrow morning.  It seems we are heading for an early night because we plan to leave at 5am.

Our full crew has arrived, consisting of the old hands from the SOTW team; Magnus, Paul, Claire, Tim, Bridget, Doug and Clodagh Collins, our research assistant for the summer.  We also have interns for this trip, Ellie Dickson (Marine campaigner from IFAW London), Astrún Eve Sivertsen (Biology Student at Iceland University) and Sigurdr Ingolfsson.

Back to Top

23rd June 2006
We manage to get a bright and early start and set out to begin our search for whales.  As we head out into the bay, the sea is calm and so we take the opportunity to carry out some distance estimating training.  When a whale is spotted, a distance from the boat to the whale must be estimated – a tricky thing to do at sea when there are no reference points.  To practice this, we throw a buoy over the side and take the boat away from it, noting how it looks at different distances.  These can then be marked on a stick and held level with the horizon, which can be used as a reference point.

After retrieving our buoy and arming our measuring sticks, we travel southwest towards Eldey – a small island covered with seabirds.  In the vicinity we come across our first exciting sighting – a group of around 7 killer whales, including 1 calf.  Unfortunately they are too far away to take any photographs, but they get everyone excited about the days to come.

Back to Top

24th June 2006
As we are trying to maximize the chances of seeing whales rather than carrying out a survey, we have planned a route that takes us along the 200m contour up the west coast of Iceland.  Based on our own experiences from 2004 and information from local whale watch operators, this seems like a good place to start the search.

The weather is unusually cooperative, and we have excellent sighting conditions, if a little chilly.  Despite this, our sighting rate is somewhat slower than yesterday’s – we have only a few dolphin sightings and a couple of whale blows far off in the distance.

As the weather is calm we also undertake some acoustic training.  As part of our research protocol, someone listens to the hydrophone every 15 minutes and documents what can be heard.  Since the sightings rate is currently low, there is plenty of time to go through acoustic recordings and get a good idea what different species of whale sound like.