The crossing - Faroe Islands to Iceland escorted by whales
posted on March 18, 2020We sailed out from the Faroe Islands a calm evening, heading straight North. We expected the wind to pick up shortly, and wanted to gain as much height as possible, to have a favorable wind angle once they picked up. And sure enough, so they did. Text by Andreas B. Heide - Photos: www.tordkarlsen.com
It was time for Turnss (Sandra Ness) to head back to handle onshore operations and time for Barba & the onshore team to prepare for her next crossing.
Later in the night we had steady 30 knots of wind. It was rather uncomfortable, with waves continuously flushing over the boat. Items and crew members were thrown around at times, with some bruised ribs as a result. About half way to Iceland though, we heard the magic words from Diane who was on watch at the time. “Whales”.
In a heartbeat, we all crawled out of our bunks and got up on deck. We were met by one of those sights we will never forget. An estimated 2-300 pilot whales cheerfully followed in our wake. The weather conditions prevented us from doing little more then to keep sailing with a good average speed of about 7,5 knots.
They tracked us for about half an hour seemingly effortlessly. Fabrice came with wonderful news from the bathroom. Inside the boat we could hear the loud clicks and whistles from the whales. In my opinion, they were clearly finding our presence rather amusing. For all I know this could have been the first time they met with a sailboat.
From a scientific perspective there was little we could do but to observe and enjoy the view. Amongst the pilot whales, we could also see the white sided dolphin, which had eluded us in the Faroe Islands. You often times find the two species together, and my assumption would be that they cooperate when hunting fish. We had hoped to observe this behavior on the way. Fortunately nature never reveals it all, and I will be even more intrigued next time I come across a similar ensemble of whales.
After two days at sea we made it across to Iceland. The wind had pushed us off course, and the landfall was made in the Breiðdalsvík, adding about 12 hours of transit to our final destination of Husavik. Little did we care, we had made it across safely in challenging conditions. After two days of waiting on the west coast, we completed the final transit to Husavik, on the North side of Iceland.
This would be our base of operations for the next month, where we cooperate with local scientists collecting data from the whales that resides in large numbers in the bay. Rumours had it that the blue whales were in the area as well. A life long dream of seeing and studying the biggest animal that has ever lived, was within reach. More whale tales to come!
Andreas
