The Nature of Faxaflói Bay

Being located at the SW-corner of Iceland and with its mouth facing to the west, Faxaflói bay is heavily affected by the strong Irminger current, a branch from the Gulf stream which provides Iceland‘s southwest and northern coastal waters with warm and saline waters in mixture with the cold water of the East Greenland current.

Since coastal ecosystems, such as Faxaflói bay, are affected by the freshwater river runoff, the salinity becomes diluted when the runoff is at its maximum during early summer. But it is exactly this complicated interaction between the powerful ocean current circulations and seasonal variation in freshwater flow into the ocean that is responsible for the diverse live that thrives within the bay.

Humpback Whale breaching outside of Reykjavík

How do the ocean currents and the river runoff affect the wildlife of Faxaflói bay?

Two winter birds on a rock in Faxaflói Bay

The river runoffs bring many nutrients into the coastal waters in addition to constant circulation of various nutrients in the ocean from decaying organisms. These nutrients are essential for the oceans primary producers to function and alternatively bloom. These primary producers are the phytoplankton and the blue-green bacteria (cyanobacteria), tiny single celled organisms that are the foundation of all ocean ecosystems. What makes them so important is that they are capable of transforming inorganic matter into edible organic matter, in other words food. But nothing comes out of nothing. This mechanism is driven by the sun‘s energy and is commonly known as photosynthesis where the plankton assimilates carbon into carbohydrates which they use for themselves to grow, and consequently benefits those that feed on the plankton.

But in order to grow and multiply they need essential minerals such as nitrogen, phosphorous and iron. The plankton is not capable of swimming actively about in the water column picking up nutrients. They need the nutrients to come to them. But the problem is that nutrients obey the rule of gravity and sink to the bottom. Thanks to the wind driven water mixing, upwelling along bottom slopes and hills and due to variation in water salinity, these nutrients are brought back up to the surface. The low saline summer coastal currents therefore contribute to the water mixing. These currents are additionally important distributers of fish larvae, such as for the cod and haddock larvae. Strong freshwater runoff induces the strength of the coastal current which in turn increases the distribution of these larvae which is important for the survival of these important commercial fish species.

Atlantic Cod

Þorskur

Haddock

Ýsa

Whiting

Lýsa

Pollack

Ufsi

Catfish

Steinbitur

Mackerel

Makríl

Where do we operate in Faxaflói Bay?

All of the waters around Iceland are rich in marine life, but Faxaflói bay is especially nutrient rich. We can operate across the entire bay, this dashed blue-line section here on the map, but we tend to find our best luck in cetacean spotting in the centre of the bay. If we take an imaginary line between Sandgerði & Akranes, the halfway point here is a prime spotting area.

Occasionally, we can find some marine life closer to land, for example near the islands beside Reykjavík - Akurey, Viðey, Engey & Lundey.

Where is the Whale?

Discover some of the research we carry out onboard in this excellent article 'Where is the Whale?' By gaining an insight into their distrubtion patterns in Faxaflói Bay, we can obtain useful data for ongoing conservation efforts in the bay.