Day 80 June 30th 2018 Iceland
The first day of six, staying in our small summer house near Husavik. Designated an easy day we decided to visit the Whale Museum before doing an evening whale-watching trip in what is commonly known as the whale watching capital of the world – Husavik. The earlier part of the day was spent as a lovely, lazy, lay day – reading, dozing and catching up on writing. No WiFi access provides distraction free days!
The Husavik Whale museum – I resisted because I did not want to go through another museum about killing whales for oil. Phew – only a small section on whaling – the remainder was natural history including stuff we learned:
As we entered I showed one of the attendants a photo of a bone we had found on the beach near Hofn. This young man thought it may have been the Pectoral fin of Blue Whale.
A large Blue Whale skeleton that died after beaching on an Iceland shore. It had been cleaned and its skeleton retrieved and reconstructed in the museum.
Bubble nets – created by the whales to catch food – only in Alaska. Whales go down to up to 30metres and begin blowing a circle of bubbles as they rise the bubbles become bigger and block the fish to enable the whales to feed.
It was disturbing to read the display that described evidence of whales beaching following Military sonar use around the world.
The pattern on the Flukes of the whale is similar to our fingerprint – each pattern is different
Weather had not improved – rain and wind as we headed to the meeting point for our North Sailing whale watching trip on an old Oak boat the Gardar. Our research had not let us down – the boat was beautiful old wood, the whale spottings were frequent, and there was hot chocolate and cinnamon bun at the end. Only the weather but even that made it a trip to remember.
In addition to our winter layers we were given full padded suits (onesies!) plus a full length rain coat for weather protection. These proved cosy despite wet, cold and windy conditions out on the water. We headed out on Skalfandi Floi or Shaky bay – so named as it sits on a Tectonic plate and undetectable earthquakes are constantly occurring.
The rain and cold was forgotten as we reached a mother and calf moving around us, quickly followed by a range of sightings until we were ringed by whales. Humpback whales – huge creatures gracefully curving and flicking their Flukes up as they rolled back into the water.
Puffins bobbing on the water with a funny moment watching a Puffin attempting to become airborne – almost running along the water taking off then bumping back onto the surface again. Tiny Arctic Terns circling, diving and landing travelling between Iceland and Antartica they seem mighty little creatures.
