Wednesday 23 June 2010

I am an onion!




Similarly to the famous movie "Shrek" , I would like to say that since I arrived to Norway I am an onion. Let me explain:
As a child I never liked using tights (collants) and as an adult I should say that I was glad to live in a country where even in the Winter I didn't have to use them. Now that I am in Norway I never wore so many clothes in my life...As an example, here's what I'm wearing today:
tights
underpants
socks
thicker socks
trousers
boots
undershirt
another undershirt
sweatshirt
polar jacket
water and wind jacket (double layer)
gloves
cap

What about that hum? It's amazing when you want to use the toilet!
And the funny thing is that, once I am at sea looking out for the whales I am still cold!!!!!

Although I am cold, during the minutes that we do have a great sighting of a whale, dolphin or seal, the cold seems to go away. BUT right after that, it seems even colder than before!
So, where we have some pictures that warmed my heart when my body was freezing :P

So far, the weather hasn't been very good, so the trips are not so frequent...Today we are going out, so cross your fingers for me for good weather, south wind and many sightings!!!

Friday 18 June 2010

adventures



Well, well,well...After the magnificent trip, I got to meet the small village of Stø. There truly isn't anything out here. No shops, no markets, no post office, nothing. The closest shop is an IKA supermarket and it's over 7km far...Not that this is a problem, but of course I need to take a 5€ bus everytime I need to buy some food, and that isn't always easy to do. Apart from that, I have been moving in and out of houses/caravans and today I'm moving for the last time, I hope. Also, the trips have been going well, some better than others of course. When people get terribly sea sick (even with the tablets!!!), then the trip becomes unbearable... It is very hard to run all around the boat helping people, cleaning, and making sure there are nice animals for them to see as well. It is hard, but so far I've been managing ok. I just keep my fingers crossed before every trip so the sea state is good and people don't get sea sick. Although the last trip was really the most horrible in terms of sea sickness and excitement from the passengers, it was the best for observations. We had some wonderful sperm whale flukes, harbour seals, gannets, and in the end I caught a glimpse of a beautiful orca male's dorsal fin :) yey for that! I also found out what happened last year with the fin whales, and why there weren't even close to the numbers of previous years. They came up north! As I hear from other guides, there were never as many fin whales and pilot whales up here as in the last year. Soooooo, that's what happened!!!! Today we have no trip, the weather is bad, but tomorrow hopefully we'll go out again and maybe I'll see the killer whales again!

Friday 11 June 2010

Where all the fun begins!!!



As I promised, there will be more frequent posts about my adventures in Norway :)

I arrived yesterday in Oslo and could already have a pretty good idea on how beautiful this country is. There is green everywhere and you get the feeling that this place brings real peace and tranquility to people. After that delightful moment, I was forced to hurry up to check in again for my next flight. Lucky me....the flight was delayed. As the plane took off I was able to see chances in the sky. I left Oslo with a Sunset and arrived in Evenes with a perfect sky similar to what we usually have in the afternoon. Truly a midnight Sun!

Suddenly, my eyes were completely overwhelmed with images like the one on the bottom. Absolutely amazing, worthy of Lord of the Rings landscape ratings!

I was exhausted, but the light didn't let my system shut down, no matter how hard I would close my eyes! After I got out of the plane, panic came along. I had nowhere to go, there were no buses to the town I was supposed to go and I had to go somewhere else and sleep! Finally, I got to a hostel and slept. The next day, I was picked up and met everyone on the team! I was very welcome by everyone, but unfortunately the weather was bad so we couldn't go out to the Fjords or to sea. Maybe tomorrow!