If i was here to take in the scenery, I'd be in heaven! I love this place, it's peaceful, it's tranquil, the people at the hotel are fantastic! But the reason I'm on the arctic circle is to witness some killer whales in the wild. Now as the story goes, in the 90s herring numbers were down to approximately 1 million tonnes, this was through over fishing by the Norwegians. From then on they had a 10 year ban (has to be applauded) of fishing herring.
(While I'm writing about herring i cannot stop thinking about Monty python and quest for the holy Grail, when the knights who say Ni, request the king to cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with...........a herring!)
Now the herring numbers are at approximately 10 million tonnes. But while the numbers were so low the herring would hide in Tysfjord (pronounced tisfyord) which is where i am currently located. Tysfjord is the second deepest fjord in Norway. And it has Tysfjord's most dominant mountain, Stetind, is famous in Norway. This 1,392 metres (4,567 ft) high natural granite, and it rises straight out of the fjord. An amazing landmark. I need to expand my vocabulary, amazing has come up way too much! Firstly we have an orca briefing, a half hour chat about what we will be seeing and what to look for. He also explains orca behaviour and some interesting names of different parts of the whales, he seemed more of an enthusiast than anything else. Pec fin is paddle, they have teeth like us and a nose. He also had a great picture in the presentation of an orca with his wang out! After the briefing, into our sexy and slimming outfits, massive dry suits, yellow and blue are now my colours! Off to the harbour and into our zodiac boat. On the water it was very cold, and a slight breeze just made everything drop a few degrees. Everytime we slowed from our cruising pace the wake of the water then comes over the back of the boat, no guesses where i was sitting? One time was particularly bad, stopped quite suddenly, camera and lens got quite wet......grr reach in the back which it being protected by a waterproof cover..... Ah, wet cloth, not quite waterproof kathmandu! So I just put it away. And why were we stopping? Birds! Not killer whales, birds! While everyone is looking up I'm searching the horizons for what i came for. Don't get me wrong these birds are majestic, and we even picked off a few herring and fed them, they come swooping down and grab them, very cool to see. Unfortunately with the wet camera i couldn't do anything but enjoy nature at it's most beautiful. Some breath taking cliff faces, sheer walls of granite and everywhere you see, rugged snow capped mountains in every direction. The fjords are a beautiful place. But still no whales! And tonight there is heavier cloud cover than last night making aurora borealis impossible to view. Last night there was a light cloud and I could see stars and the green tinge of the northern lights, and i did manage to get a shot of the green hue, but it was very grainy since I had to use a 3200 ISO!
For those of you unsure about what 3200 ISO means, well lets do a quick photography lesson. ISO previously called ASA, it's a standard of light sensitivity previously used for film, when digital took over they used the same principals. The lower the number the less sensitive to light, the higher the more sensitive. The lower the ISO like a 50 would give you greater colours, contrast and no grain (now called digital noise). Where with a higher ISO you get the opposite. So taking shots of stars you'll need a higher speed film/ISO, normally i would use 200 or 400 to try and eliminate any grain, but have some kind of light sensitivity. An exposure time of 30 secs should be able to see the stars/aurora borealis. If you want to take photos of star trails, give it 30mins+ as the earth spins the stars stay in the same spot, making a star trail across the sky. With the low cloud last night I tried the 3200 just to see if it could pick it up. You could see it, but the photo looks a bit dodgy with the heavy grain. Newer cameras now have ISOs up to 100,000+ and the grain is very minimal.
So tomorrow will be attempt two of finding whales. Here's hoping to a great finish up in the arctic circle.
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