We left the Swedish west coast in early September, and have since then been sailing north along the Norwegian coast, slowly filming and diving our way north towards our final goal which is Troms in the Northern Norway where we want to film the winter whales.
With the winter whales I mean the many hundreds of Orcas and Humpback whales that anually gather in the fjords of Troms, to take part of the huge amount of herring overwintering in the area.
With our loaded sailing boat "Eja", we are now on our way up there to document this extraordinary wildlife phenomena happening during the cold and dark Arctic winter :-)
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At the writing moment, we have just passed the Arctic circle and have spent a couple of nights by anchor next to the scenic mountain range "The Seven Sisters".
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Our days onboard "Eja" are filled with sailing and filming, and we make many stops on our way, where we explore and film the environment from both above and underwater.
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Due to the limited time spent on the computer, my blogposts do come with a little delay....Here are finally some more pics from our recent stop in Trøndelag and Trondheimsfjorden!
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Trøndelag is a place in mid Norway, where I have spent plenty of my previous time in. A place I truly enjoy a lot. The mountains and forests here offers a great variety of spots for hiking and wildlife exploring.
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The main reason why we enter Trondheimsfjorden this time though, is to film ghost sharks! But for doing so we need to wait until it gets dark before we dive.
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We anchor at the spot where we know we might have a chance to find the mysterious creatures we are looking for...
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First when the darkness has arrived, and the moon shines at us with her wonderful smile, it is time for us to get into the refreshing 10 degree cold water.
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We start our dive by descending along the anchor chain. After we have reached the
bottom, it doesn´t take long before we see two eyes shining in the
infinite darkness. It is the ghost shark!
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The ghost sharks are deep water creatures normally living many hundreds
meter deep. But in some of the Norwegian fjords, such as here in
Trondheimsfjorden, there are places where the ghost sharks can be found
in much shallower water when diving at night.
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Chimaera monstrosa is the latin name for this extraordinary fish, in english also known as rabbit fish, rat fish or spookfish.
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Like sharks and rays, which are their closest living relatives, the ghost sharks have cartilaginous skeletons. They can can grow up to 1.5 m long and mainly feed on bottom-living invertebrates.
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For defense, this cute little fella has a
venomous
spine located in front of the
dorsal fin...
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The time underwater feels way to short when diving with these magnificient animals. But as I haven´t found a way to start growing gills just yet ;-) there comes a point when we have to say good bye to our aquatic friends and start our ascent back to the boat.
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After a couple of nights diving with the ghost sharks, it is time for us to continue our trip. With our diving gear still drying on deck we therefore leave Trondheimsfjorden to head further north.
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It is getting late October now and the days are drastically getting much shorter. The season for the winter whales of Norway is about to start! Time for both us and the whales to enter the fjords of Troms :-)
