Day eight
To cut a long story short: It’s been a great day!
After watching the beautiful polar light last night I got less sleep than preferred because I drove to Andenes to participate a whale safari. First I had to drive round two hours. After that I had to wait, time I used to put my cameras in waterproof bags. Finally we where equipped with overalls and live vests and entered the big rubber boat. We left the harbour and headed an area where whales have been seen some hours before. This part was a bit tough since we drove against the wind and some waves where quite huge letting the boat rise and fall some meters into the wave troughs again.
But finally we reached the area and directly saw the first whale fins and the first steam blown out through the whales blowholes.
The next two hours we saw a lot of whales, sometimes we where almost surrounded by them. Mostly we saw orcas (that are called killer whales, too) and humpbacks, but some fin whales as well. The orcas are following the herring and I probably came just to the right time to see so many of them. We even saw orca calves that are yellow or even orange instead of white as long as they are breast-fed.
(Oops, the room where I get internet is closing soon, I have to rush a bit …)
For me the most amazing view were the huge humpbacks diving down showing only there big tail fin. And the orca child swimming near its mother. And now to the photos:
As I said – it’s been a great day!
Links:
Sea Safari – Whale & Bird watching Andenes (under construction)
Photoing whales
It’s hard to take pictures of the whales. Sometimes there where quite near, less than 10 meters, but mostly there are farer away and you need a good system camera, a good tele lens and much practise in focussing. The most of my photos were out of focus, but alas not all.
Some of the photographers that joined the trip had real huge tele lenses and I guess the value of the total camera equipment onboard was the same as my house in Skelleftehamn.
Whale names
| Latin |
English |
German |
Swedish |
| Orcinus orca |
Orca / Killer whale |
Orca / Schwertwal |
Späckhuggare |
| Megaptera novaeangliae |
Humpback whale |
Buckelwal |
Knölvalen |
| Balaenoptera physalus |
Fin whale |
Finnwal |
Sillval |
