The last snow has not disappeared completely and also summer is slow in coming. In contrast, our bay is getting full of life at the same time. Some weeks ago the beautiful puffins returned to their island in Skjálfandi bay and also many other seabirds have been spotted during our whale watching tours.
Now in May, more and more humpback whales reached their feeding grounds situated in this bay. First one by one seemed to enter the bay, but during the past days several new individuals have been seen daily.
This morning, our crew and passengers were able to count a total of 12 humpbacks in the closer surrounding of our oak boat Sylvía. Some of the individuals surprised our guests by surfacing just next to the drifting boat. „It was the first individual we saw. We were waiting for it to show up again, looked all around, but then it surfaced just next to us – not further away as you are away from me right now,“ says a happy passengers when coming to the Ticket Center after the tour. „They were simply everywhere! The guide said 3 o‘clock, 6 o‘clock, 1 o‘clock... we didn‘t know where to look first! And three of them even swam next to each other, lifted their flukes at the same time, dived together,“ another visitor describes excitedly. Later today Amma Kibba's captain Sverrir informed us more humpbacks had entered the bay and he encountered almost 20 humpbacks at the same time, playing, breaching and diving all around the boat.
Along other whales, also humpbacks migrate to Iceland for feeding. The first ones usually arrive in April. They will stay throughout the summer until late autumn when they will leave for their breeding grounds in the Caribbean Sea or the west coast of Africa.
