Whalers

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All my life I’ve been fascinated by whales. Not sure what is the attraction of these majestic mammals, but I suspect my interest begun way back in the days at the Natural History Museum, in their Blue Zone gallery. For a 6-year old, a room full of natural-sized whale models can be quite exciting.

Now, when people have realized that whale safaris are a rather lucrative business, luckily they are worth as much alive as they are dead, killed by modern whalers. One great spot for watching whales is Iceland. Their cold waters inhabit a large number of various species of whales. So when I finally decided to go to Iceland, whale watching was on top of my list of things to do.

Of all whales, my favorite is the orca, also known as the killer whale. The mere idea of seeing a killer whale in the wild really built up my excitement. Any whale sightings would do, but a sight or even a photo of a killer whale would maybe not make my life complete, but would definitely add significant value.

The day wasn’t ideal for whale watching, and the sea turned out to be rather rough. I didn’t care much though. When all the other tourists were popping motion sickness pills, I couldn’t wait to get going, looking out at the sea from the port of Husavik. The crew’s simple but effective system for alerting us of potential sightings definitely got the passengers actively involved in the excursion. “Blow at ten o’clock”, and all the passengers rushed to the left side of the ship. “Blow at three o’clock”, and everybody would rush to the right side of the ship to maybe catch a glimpse of a whale.

One thing to be aware of when going on a whale safari is that there are no guarantees of spotting any whales. After all, we’re in their element, and the whales decide when they want to show themselves. Considering the less than ideal conditions, we did get quite lucky in the end. After a little while, and after having followed the leads of a blow, a big one suddenly surfaced only a few meters from the ship. Forget striking photo poses though. This one - I believe it was a humpback whale - flashed its belly for a few seconds, and then disappeared back into the deep ocean. Majestic.

Apparently and a little surprisingly this sighting was good enough for most of the passengers. The rest of the trip many of them kept busy not to throw up from the rough sea, some even hanging over the railing, dumping their sick into the sea. The big French group of tourists who occupied the bow of the ship and refused to move even though they were all too sick to even look at the sea, had enough after a while and started shouting “Allés, allés” and waving at the captain to turn the ship around and go back. Eventually the captain obeyed, and headed back for the shore. On the way back, all of a sudden a group of dolphins appeared, jumping in the water a hundred meters from the ship. Beautiful.

In the end, never saw that killer whale, but any whale would have made my trip, and throwing in a few dolphins made it even more memorable. One of my fellow travellers said that she would go hiking in the striking mountains every day of the trip if she could. If I had to choose one activity to do every day of a holiday, it would without doubt be whale watching.

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