Sun, sails, dolphins and whales
The day was promising as Haukur headed out of Húsavík Harbour: the sun was shining, the sea was flat and a slight breeze made our sailors quite happy. On our morning tour, we were lucky enough to see several Humpback whales, one of which was quite content to rest on the surface near the boat for almost 10 minutes! Definitely a rare sight to see, and it is always a pleasure when you can see the entire whale stretched out under the water. Smooth seas meant for a leisurely sail back home to Húsavík.
Thinking the day couldn’t get much better, we set course on our second trip of the day. Expecting to find our friends the humpbacks again, we sailed towards the north of Skjálfandi Bay. Indeed, we found our humpbacks had been joined by some White Beaked Dolphins, and both paid us a nice visit. Sailing around we could see blows in several directions, and it was actually difficult to pick a whale to focus on! Together with all of this, a very large group of dolphins could be seen approaching the boat, and before we knew it we were surrounded! Dolphins were jumping all around us, the humpbacks were showing off their flukes and all of us aboard Haukur were simply taking it all in. The show nature put on for us was really formidable, and just goes to show that the Bay can surprise us any day. Of course, tearing ourselves away from this magnificent display of agility and elegance was no easy task, but we had to head back to Húsavík, enjoying a cup of Stroh-spiced hot chocolate and a cinnamon bun.
(Photos by Christian Schmidt)
