Four species on one trip!
The weather conditions were really nice when we left Húsavík harbour this morning onboard our biggest vessel “Garðar”: The sun was shining, there was a light southerly wind, and the sea was also very calm.
As the main whale activity had been quite far out in the northern part of the bay, we immediately set the course towards the north and we were expecting to sail for about an hour in this direction.
But after about 20 minutes of sailing, we suddenly spotted a minke whale which came up right next to our boat a few times, so that everybody on board go some great lookes at the whale!
We continued sailing further north and after some sailing, we came across a very calm and relaxed humpback whale! It was just resting next to our boat for a while, enabling us to get a great look at the complete whale, and we could also clearly see its long white flippers under the surface.
As we were watching this humpback whale, we spotted something even bigger a little bit further north and as we went there, it became clear that it was a whale, that had already been here in the bay several times and what is possibly a hybrid between a blue whale and a fin whale! It is a very large whale with a very high dorsal fin (more fin whale like) and a blue-grey colouration on its back (more blue whale like). This whale had already been here about two weeks ago and then some researchers took a skin sample of the whale and sent it to Reykjavík…..it will be very exciting to hear about the results!
On the way back to Húsavík, we were just abouth to finish our cup of hot chocolate, we even came across a nice group of white-beaked dolphins, making this a very nice trip with four different species of whales! What a way to start the day! 🙂
Christian, guide
The Humpback Whale from our tour this morning, surfacing right next to the schooner “Hildur” (Photo: Christian Schmidt)
