Another Week of Whale Watching

We don’t go out to sea every day. Often it’s a few days with tours and a few days without. Either because we don’t have enough bookings, because it’s still the start of the season, or due to poor sea conditions, meaning especially high waves and bad visibility.

But I get better at talking to the guests with each tour, and the Germans are often very happy to have a native speaker on board and ask me a lot of questions. Not necessarily about the whales, but often they rather ask where I’m from, if I live in Norway, and how I came to find this job.

One day I’m even asked to give an additional short briefing in German since 90 percent of the people on the boat today are Germans. I had thought I knew a lot about whales, but I have been humbled within the last few days. And as a volunteer, that’s actually not part of my job. Aaaand I hate speaking in front of people in general. But I know it would be a good training, and I’m sure some of them would be happy to get a brief breakdown of the most important information in their own language.

I really have to push myself to do it. But then I stand on the picnic table in front of the group, try my best to speak loudly, and describe everything I learned about the canyon and the whales. In the end, it even feels good to do this.

For a week, we have seen pilot whales almost every day, and they are doing a great job at trying to become my new favorite species.

I spend the evenings on my laptop. I developed a habit of going through all the pictures I took that day, deleting the blurred ones, editing the best ones, and taking notes of the happenings of the day.

And while I still haven’t gotten seasick at all, I feel land sick instead after long days at sea. So now, I always feel dizzy in the evenings.