The show must go on!
The much feared weather gods were obviously in a good mood when we set off at 10:00 from harbor on Garðar. The sun high in the sky, the sea glittering like a thousand diamonds and a warm breeze from the southeast. Me and Baldur, the other guide, climbed into the steel cauldron that is the guides main hangout on Garðar and started scanning the surface. When getting closer to the mountains we spotted a spout from a whale about 2-3 meters high. We had a pretty good idea of what kind of whale this was and later confirmed when a big Humback Whale came to the surface. There were several other humpbacks around but they seemed to pretty business minded this time and didn’t coma close to the boat. At last one of them showed some interest in us and surfaced close many times so we got a very good view. Later we spotted a Minke Whale that proved to be rather reclusive but it was beautiful to see the sun glisten on its black skin.
Then it was time for the 13:30 trip. By then the wind had turned. The cold northern sea breeze was blowing though not too fiercely and the sea was a bit more choppy. For some unknown reason whales are more likely to breach when the sea is a little rough so this worked in our favor. Suddenly we saw a huge splash rather far to the north. A Humpback was breaching and of course we hurried to the scene. We were tremendously lucky since the whale didn’t stop breaching when we arrived and even jumped fairly close to the boat occasionally. A very happy passenger told me he had shot about 200 pictures of this whale! He was ecstatic and so were the other passengers and the crew since this is not something that happens every day.
If I will make a top 10 list at the end of the season then this 13:30 trip will definitely be in the top five.
Flosi, guide.
