Today we planned to go whale watching in the northern coastal city of Husavik. The proximity to the Arctic Circle means many whales spend their summers here in the waters around Husavik. We were looking forward to this excursion for a while now and had our hopes up to see humpbacks jumping out of the water and enormous blue whales swimming alongside us. But whale watching requires luck, and so we knew we might not be lucky.
Lake Myvatn to Husavik
The morning was sunny and clear as we drove to Husavik. It appeared to be the perfect day for whale watching. The road was unpaved for much of the trip as it went over rolling hills in wide open grasslands. There were no trees or structures to block the view, so each time we crested a hill we could see the empty road stretching out far in front of us.
Husavik
When we reached Husavik the day was calm, clear and sunny, perfect weather for a day out on the ocean.
We arrived in Husavik with an hour to spare, so we decided to walk around the nearby Whale Museum while waiting for our boat ride. The museum has an impressive collection of skeletons from various local marine mammals including a full blue whale skeleton.
When we exited the whale museum the sky had changed from blue to gray. Our perfect day was lost. As we went out into the cold arctic waters in a small wooden fishing boat the visibility continued to drop until we were surrounded on all sides by a wall of fog. The only thing that was clear was that we wouldn’t be seeing many whales today.
After boarding the boat the guides provided us with one of the heaviest outfits I’ve ever worn. They were huge one piece arctic outfits with multiple hoods and layers. Getting dressed for the whaling tour was an event in itself and afterwards were all looked like giant puffy oranges,
After what felt like hours on the water I figured we would be heading back with zero whale sightings. Fortunately for us, the tour guides were very persistent. After what seemed like hours a floating around in the fog going from location to location, each of which appeared exactly as the previous, they managed to spot a humpback diving and feeding.
After a while, a second boat joined us in following the lone humpback. Likely they too had been wandering around for hours searching. We watched the whale dive and surface several times until the guides determined it was done feeding and started heading us back to shore. We arrived tired, hungry, cold and slightly
Husavik to Akureyi
What started as a sunny day turned into a foggy, way day by the time we left Husavik.
Akureyi
An hour drive from Husavik took us to the town of Akureyi, the largest city in north Iceland. It was nice to return to the city for shopping and dining and we found a small but good downtown walking area near the end of Hafnarstreati (Hafnar Street?). We also spent some time walking along the waterfront where we located the Akureyi Sail sculpture. We noted the similarity with the famous Sun Voyager in Reykjavik and discovered later that this is sometimes referred to as the Northern Sun Voyager. For me, however, there is a huge difference between the two in terms of crowds. In fact, there was not a single person other than ourselves walking along the waterfront of this city.
I want to note that there are many other sculptures to visit in Akureyi and the Visit Akureyi website has a great sculpture walk along with audio tour posted here:
http://www.visitakureyri.is/en/things-to-do/art-trail
The Video
The weather was great during the morning drive to Husavik, but the afternoon drive to Akureyi got progressively worse. I had to cut the video early into Akureyi as the raindrops cover too much of the video.
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