Saturday 31 May 2014

Whales!

Photo: Lisa Anderson









If it’s whale watching in Iceland, mainly the name Husavik springs to mind, our destination for this morning. Only passing from Grimsey to the Northeast of Iceland we had spotted so many whales, literally on the drive-by, how promising is it to go out with the people who live here! And indeed some of them are bold enough to give a guarantee to spot the gentle giants. The port of Husavik sports many of very beautiful whale watching boats, giving the whole place a bit of a Moby-Dick feeling.
Photo: Klaus Kiesewetter
So it is more than natural that some of us set out with the schooner Haukur to see plenty of birds and of course follow the blows at the oceans surface.
After a stunning visit at the steep cliffs that were literally teeming with puffins it takes only a short ride until the first whales come into sight. In the end the statistics speak of minkys, fin whales and humpbacks. Not bad for a mornings ride!
Photo: Lisa Anderson
Photo: Klaus Kiesewetter
At the same time others were busy marinating in the Myvatn Nature Baths, geothermal natural pools of a constant 40 degrees (centigrade…), after a pretty hike around the perfect caldera of Hverfell. Really volcanic it gets on the Lake Myvatn Express that takes the third group through the mighty lava fields of Dimmuborgir and the boiling sulfur pots of Namaskard. So there is something for everybody, many stories are swapped after returning for the ride to our evening destination Thorshofn, where the local music school performs for us in the observation lounge.
Photo: Lisa Anderson
Photo: Lisa Anderson