‘I can see a blow at two o’clock,’ said Astrid. ‘I will use the clock numbers to direct you, with twelve being the front of the boat and six the back.’
Leifur was impressed by how well Astrid was coming across. She sounded as if she’d done this countless times before. He watched at the spot she’d said and saw the nextblow for himself, changing the heading of the boat starboard to head in that direction.
‘There are minkes approaching from five o’clock,’ said Astrid, although he wasn’t sure how she could tell. ‘We have two individuals at twelve o’clock.’
Some of the guests headed up to the bow, phones in their hands, while most of them stayed on the main deck.
‘Minkes are fast. These won’t be with us for long,’ Astrid said. ‘I can see a blow at nine o’clock, about five hundred metres from us.’
Leifur turned the boat slightly in that direction. He hadn’t realised that Astrid’s scouting and relaying what she could see to the guests would help him out too. He thought he’d have to rely on looking for fish on the sonar as a starting point.
‘The whale we have at twelve o’clock is a humpback. Each humpback whale has distinctive markings on the underside of its tail, and they’re individual, like fingerprints. There’s a library of known individuals kept by the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, so if you get a good photo of a tail today, they could tell you information about that whale if it’s already known to them.’
The humpback appeared ahead of them, and as Astrid carried on with her commentary, Leifur received a radio message on an open channel from another tour boat letting him know the location of a group of four humpback whales about two kilometres from their position. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.
‘How’s it going?’ Jonas appeared at the door of the wheelhouse. ‘You guys are doing a great job so far.’
‘And we have whales already,’ said Leifur.
‘And a boat of happy guests. Was that a radio message from another tour boat saying they’d found whales at another location?’
‘Yes, we have to keep in radio contact with other vessels as part of the code of conduct, but I wasn’t expecting them to share information like that.’
‘I wondered if that might happen. On northern lights tours, we often share information on where the best sightings are, especially if it’s cloudy and hard to find a clear spot. I wasn’t sure they’d do the same on the whale watching. That’s great.’
‘It is,’ Leifur agreed. ‘I thought it’d be more competitive than that.’
‘We all want the same thing. By the time the customers are on the boat, they’ve spent their money with us, and we have to meet their expectations.’
‘And I guess one day we might find the whales and another day someone else might,’ Leifur said.
‘Exactly. It’s bigger than us. If every visitor to Iceland leaves having seen what they came to see, we’re all doing a great job.’
18
WHEN THEY’D BEEN out at sea for over an hour and seen countless whales, Astrid announced to the guests that they were heading back to Reykjavik and it was the last chance to look at the whales. She was exhilarated but exhausted. It had taken a lot of energy this morning to help ease Leifur’s anxieties while feeling just as anxious herself. But knowing that there was more at stake for him helped her to push her own feelings aside, and concentrating on keeping him calm had taken her mind off her own worries. Being responsible for the commentary had felt daunting, but she’d loved it. As soon as she spotted the first blow, she felt right at home. She could just as easily have been on a research vessel, and the details she knew about the whales came flowing out naturally. A couple of guests came over to her and asked questions, which she took as a good sign that she was keeping them interested in the search.
‘Great job, Astrid,’ said Jonas, coming over as she took her headset off. ‘You and Leifur have an excellent system set up here. Letting him know where to head and telling us where to look, it’s very clever.’
‘Thanks.’ They hadn’t planned that at all, but she had noticed Leifur steering in the direction she was spottingwhale activity, and he got as close as he safely could to give everyone some magnificent views. ‘I think it was a pretty good first attempt.’
‘I think so too. I think you need another pair of hands, though. If there’s an emergency while you’re at sea, pulling you away from the other guests, it’s not ideal. I’ll find someone who can man the galley while you’re at sea and help with the kitting out so you and Leifur can concentrate on the safety side of things and the whales,’ said Jonas.
‘That’d be great, thank you.’ Astrid wondered what Leifur would think about that idea given that he was less than enthusiastic about her being on board to begin with. But it made sense. With Leifur in the wheelhouse while she was looking for whales, they could do with another person to monitor things.
‘Astrid, that was wonderful,’ said her mother, giving her a hug.
‘Incredible,’ said her father, who was a man of few words perhaps because he struggled to get a word in when Gudrun was around, but he was beaming with pride at her and it felt amazing to share what she loved with her family.
Once the guests had taken their weatherproof suits off, they were almost back in the harbour. Astrid got ready to throw the ropes around the mooring posts. It was the most nerve-wracking part of the entire tour because the guests were all on deck ready to disembark. She’d practised over and over for the past few days, throwing the loops of rope over the mooring posts at the bow and stern until Leifur stopped the engines and could help secure the lines himself. Now, as she waited for him to pull alongside the dock, she was sure she was going to miss. Of course it had happened plenty of times, and Leifur had assured her it didn’t matter too much. There was time for a couple more attempts beforeBrimfaxiwould drift past the point of no return, and he wouldhave to switch the engines to reverse to compensate. She would die if that happened today. In the event, she looped the stern rope over the mooring post on the first attempt, and everyone on deck cheered, which may have been why she needed two attempts for the bow rope.
Leifur jumped from the boat onto the dock and tied off the rest of the lines, then he joined Astrid to say goodbye to their guests as they disembarked.
‘That was wonderful, thank you,’ Astrid’s mother said to Leifur. Her eyes were sparkling, and she gave her daughter a knowing look as she turned to her. ‘We’ll see you back at Gudrun’s.’
‘Very impressive,’ her father said, shaking Leifur’s hand before he briefly hugged Astrid. ‘Very proud,’ he whispered in her ear.
It brought a tear to her eye. She’d never done anything before that had made her parents say they were proud of her. Of course, she’d known it when they were at various key moments, like when she got her degree, but this felt different. Maybe it meant more to them because they’d been part of today. They’d been able to see her in action in a way they never had before.
