Whales on holidays
Well, folks – it’s definetly SUMMER here in the north of Iceland! Today the sky was again deep blue and it was unusual warm, even out at sea! However, it took us some time to find the whales. We spotted several blows in the northern part of Skjálfandi Bay and close to Lundey, but the whales seemed to spend quite a long time under the sea surface. When we came closer, we encountered two humpback whales. They approached each other and surfaced simultaneously. But what was really special was the way they came up for breathing: They seemed to be totally relaxed. We got the impression even the animals enjoyed the summer weather; they spent long times at the surface and were very calm. But of course it’s difficult to interprete the behavior of the whales in our human ways, since sun light is quite dangerous to the sensitive whale skin. Nevertheless both humpback whales seemed to be on holidays, just floting relaxed close to the sea surface, approaching our boat and we got an impression on their actual size, when they swam right next to the boat under the sea surface, showing us their whole body from head to tail, including the extremely long white flippers, which can reach up to one third of the whole bodylength of the animals.
After this wonderful encounter we took a little detour to lundey, the puffin island, where we spotted a group of white beaked dolphins. But they were heading north in high speed, so finally we had to turn the boat and start sailing back to Húsavík, not without stopping close to Lundey, where we had a look at thousands of puffins flying all around the island.
Is there a better way to spent your summer holidays?
Luisa, guide
Close encounter with a humpback whale (photo: Luisa Klotz)
